[greenie]

:x  The slugs have gone through my second attempt at lettuce! Totally decimated....again.

I tried protecting the baby lettuce plants with toilet paper rolls but the slimey things crawl up and over and munch away after the rain. A few of the broccolli have survived thus far but I'm not very optimistic about them surviving either.

I really would love to harvest some greens from my garden. Any tips?

P.S. I grow organically.

[noshed]

Some of my plot is worse than others - next to the fence everything gets eaten but in the open beds it's not so bad. Personally I use slug pellets selectively - I got fed up with losing everything. Although now it's cooler you could try lettuce under cut down 2L pop bottles. People recommend various traps - beer etc but I've never tried them.

[Heather_S]

Use a combination of the iron-based safe slug pellets called Advanced Slug Killer, I think, these are actually a lot more safe than the allegedly safe methly-wotsit slug pellets, beer traps (you can use half beer half water in the traps) and the plastic milk jug/soda bottle rings, at least 4 inches tall. Start off everything in plugs to get them going as strong as you can then plant out with the ring around them (pressed into the soil), sprinkle slug pellets according to the bottle (sparingly and well-scattered).

I think the slugs are getting sluggish (harhar) at this time of the year. Getting colder, making them a bit more dozy. It's no where near as bad at my allotment as it was in spring and early summer.

[milkman]

Hallo Greenie - I feel a rant coming on (!) - I agree with Heather_s re starting things off in pots but completely disagree re use of slug pellets, however "safe" they claim to be - how many hedgehogs and frogs (or other animals) have been subjected to animal testing with pelleted slugs to determine that the safe pellets really are "safe", and also what are their effects on all the other host of creatures that feed on slugs and snails or decaying matter (ie dead slugs and snails), such as centipedes, slow worms, ground beetles etc. etc. and their predators.

Silly me - of course if these slug pellets have been declared to be "safe" they really must be - that is how consumers are persuaded to buy them in vast quantities every year to produce profit for their manufacturers.  It's just like the GM lobby would have us believe that GM modified this and GM modified that is safe and harmless.... (you can tell I'm an old cynic can't you!).  The slugs keep coming back year after year though don't they?

An unpleasant task though it is, I much prefer despatching slugs I come across with a pair of scissors or my hand fork.  Then they remain uncontaminated food for a host of other creatures.

There was an interesting article in the July issue of Organic Gardening magazine entitled "How to slug proof a seedling".  In essence the bigger the seedling, the more tannins it will contain and the less interested the slugs will be in it.  So the aim is to get the seedling as big as poss as quickly as poss in a slug free environment, then when planted out it will stand a much better chance.  Use of fertilisers makes plants more attractive to slugs, so this needs to be borne in mind too.

I have never used slug pellets or any other type of slug remedy on my plots, yet I still manage to produce all the usual crops in enough quantity to feed my family...

[greenie]

I don't use slug pellets for the same reasons as milkman. I will try covering with those 2L bottles. Thanks for that.

[John]

Bit late for this year, but nematodes are good for getting rid of slugs. Not cheap, but very effective and 100% safe.  

Biological Pest Control

Good luck!