I have got some great advice on here from previous posts about slug elimination and frogs.
I am really setting my stall out to rid my garden and raised veg beds of as many slugs and snails as possible. I have been plagued by them in the garden for years, but now I'm doing veg as well I want a long term improvement. I'm considering a triple prong attack, copper bands, nematodes and hopefully frogs.
I bought some copper tape which I notice gets mixed reviews on here. It was being sold off at my local garden centre for £3 for 4m, not that cheap but I thought I'd try it all around half of my 13ft long raised beds, plus around my wooden cold frame. I intend to nail a strip all around the scaffold boards of my raised beds. If it works I'll do the other two beds as well. Anyone tied this ?
Then I thought to get rid of the slugs and eggs already in the raised beds to use nematodes. How long do I need to keep applying them to make a long term difference ? If I did 3, 6 weekly applications over all the raised beds just this year what benefit would I get in future years. Do you really have to reapply several times every year as suggested by the suppliers.
I was hoping to introduce frogs into the garden to reduce the general slug and snail population in the rest of the garden, but do the nematodes inside the dying slugs harm frogs that might eat them. Do frogs dig out and eat slugs underneath the earth or just the ones they see on the surface.
I don't have any water features in the garden right now but I have room for a small wildlife pond, I would hope to reuse a huge builders PVC screen that was left behind
after some recent work. I could fold it over a couple of time for extra strength.
What do you all think of this plan of attack ?
Thanks