[jackiestagg]

mine haven't read any of the gardening books. They don't touch lettuce or sweetpeas or brassicas but they eat my echinaceas, carrots and poppies. And they're all teetotal, I never caught a single one in a beer trap. And I have lobelia cardinalis 'Victoria' in a copper pot surrounded by water and filled with grit and they still get it.

[richyrich7]

 I've got one in the greenhouse that's eating my melon bit by bit and it refuses to eat the slug pellets I kindly left for him. Can't find the little swine's hidey hole either :x

[jackiestagg]

I suggest you plant some lobelia cardinalis next to it...

[richyrich7]

 thought about putting the hens in there, but then I'd probably be left with a hungry slug  

[jackiestagg]

knowing my slugs they would eat the hens. Some of them are big enough.

[Annie]

Or a hosta or marigolds...

[emmalm]

My slugs this year have completely ignored the juicy hosta they usually decimate and are destroying the aquilegia next to it instead.

[jackiestagg]

send me some of those. I'm overrun with aquilegias...

[Bagpuss]

My slugs have eaten nearly everything I have put out, apart from potatoes and onions and one marrow plant, despite surrounding them with grit, garlic and soot.   They were all doing well until it rained.  :cry: They even got some stuff in the green house as soon as it was up.   I surrender, next year I'm only going to plant what I know they don't like.

[richyrich7]

Have you tried piles of dry bran they eat it and die......

[sue]

I live on a barge and the snails walk down the jetty across the gangplank to get to my hostas I pick them up and trow them in the river :cry:  :roll:

[sue]

not good at typing  I meant throw

[Bagpuss]

Have you tried piles of dry bran they eat it and die......

Wow, never heard of using bran, sounds a good option, I'm going to get some. I can't believe it will work, my slugs will climb over it with their mouths shut and then eat my veg. But I'm not beaten yet.

[richyrich7]

You could also try nemaslug naturally occurring nematodes, see the left hand side of the home page there's a picture link there to get you started.

I believe the bran has to stay dry for it to work.

[Bagpuss]

I've got my bran and am trying it out tonight. Thanks.  I also met a smallholder while buying a globe artichoke in the French Market currently in Swansea and was asking him about slugs as he seemed very knowledgable.  He said surround the plot with sand as the slugs won't cross it, which made sense. But he also said that they won't cross red plants  :shock: Has anyone heard of that?  He said if you put beetroot, red chard and other red coloured crops the slugs don't like them and retreat.  Do you think he saw me coming and was having me on?  I always understood that dogs and cats can't see colours so I am a bit surprised that slugs can, and make a value judgement about them, but what do I know!

Think I'll give the nemaslug a go as well, sounds more logical.