[al78]

I put my brassica seedlings out into the cloche greenhouse last week, come home today to find half of them destroyed. Went out this evening with a torch and found about a dozen slugs slithering all over the pots. Needless to say a pair of scissors soon finished them off. Looks like I am going to have to re-sow again, a nuisance as it is already a shortened growing season to begin with.

Have ordered some copper tape which will hopefully do the trick.

Funny how the sage seedlings managed to get away with just the odd hole in a leaf here and there.

[Plot_29@_Lady_Mary]

My 2 dozen worth of cos lettuce seedlings were destroyed too! I read in the papers yesterday that this year's slug problem is going to be of 'epic proportions'. Apparent this year's cold and wet will bring out the worst. See article here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/9995475/Blooming-typical-as-the-flowers-emerge-brace-for-a-slug-invasion.html

and here:
http://news.sky.com/story/1078699/warmer-weather-brings-garden-slug-invasion

We'll need to up our slug defense strategy this year!

[al78]

My 2 dozen worth of cos lettuce seedlings were destroyed too! I read in the papers yesterday that this year's slug problem is going to be of 'epic proportions'. Apparent this year's cold and wet will bring out the worst. See article here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/9995475/Blooming-typical-as-the-flowers-emerge-brace-for-a-slug-invasion.html

and here:
http://news.sky.com/story/1078699/warmer-weather-brings-garden-slug-invasion

We'll need to up our slug defense strategy this year!

I've just ordered some copper tape, hopefully that will work in the cloche. Don't know what I am going to do about the seeds I've sown directly outdoors on the allotment. I guess I'll have to get hold of some copper matting and hope.

[Plot_29@_Lady_Mary]

I've just ordered some copper tape, hopefully that will work in the cloche. Don't know what I am going to do about the seeds I've sown directly outdoors on the allotment. I guess I'll have to get hold of some copper matting and hope.

I tried copper strips on some raised beds last year but the beastly slugs still got to my veg. Didn't take into account that slugs are lurking under the raised beds and especially around the planks...hundreds of them!

Edited to correct quote.

[DD.]

A lot of the most destructive slugs live in the soil, so you are only fencing them in, in some cases!

I have no compunction whatsoever in using blue pellets of death, provided other wild life cannot get to the dead slugs. I cannot possibly cover the home garden and the allotment with a nightly torchlit patrol with a pair of scissors!

Nor are they having my beer! 

[Kirpi]

The problem with blue pellets is you can't guarantee that wildlife cannot get to the poisoned bodies and the wildlife that are attracted to the bodies are exactly the predators that you need to keep the slug populations down.

It is difficult when you have a huge expanse to control, I agree.

I use the organic slug pellets if things start to get out of hand, otherwise I patrol and collect then dump them in the local rubbish bins in a bag where they are taken on their holidays to the local rubbish tip - Butlins for slugs!

[pdblake]

I use slug pellets. I don't buy into the idea that other animals eat the dead slugs and get killed too. Most animals don't eat carrion. I've seen blackbirds on the plot turn their noses up at dead slugs. I'm sure if every dead slug got eaten by something my back garden would look like a charnel house each summer, and it doesn't. I have frogs and plenty of birds in the garden, newts on the plot, hedgehogs on both. Though I do use wildlife friendly pellets if I can get them cheap enough. I spend too much time and energy growing veg to let slugs eat it all.

As far as I can see copper tape is a rip off. I saw some bloke on a program the other night wrapping copper pan scourers around the top of a plant pot to save money on copper strip. He never mentioned the fact that a slug was probably already in there and that, even if there wasn't, there's a ruddy great hole in the bottom of the pot.


ETA: Just found this. A quite indepth study of slugs and getting rid of them. http://www.cf.ac.uk/biosi/staffinfo/wocs2.html

[JayG]

I use the "wildlife-friendly" ferric phosphate slug pellets out in the open and the old-fashioned metaldehyde version under cover - I am fairly confident that the "safe" ones do work, but they don't actually poison the slugs and snails so you don't have the dead bodies lying around to prove it as you do with the others.

[surbie100]

I use the organic pellets, plus nematodes for things that I desperately don't want to lose. Not seen many on my plot so far this year as they'd have to be keen swimmers.