[hubballi]

Again, massive orange slugs everywhere and this morning I find that they have stripped my Italian kale down to the stalks EVEN though i sprayed them with garlic the evening before.

They are only about a foot tall as they were not long out of the pots because I grew them in  reserve. The first lot I planted grew amazingly well earlier in the summer until they were infested with cabbage root fly.

Will they survive as they are with just stalks ?

[BabbyAnn]

I would tentatively say the kale will generate new leaves, but I'm not sure about the garlic spray as a deterrant (maybe for whitefly or some other insect pest) and would suggest you look at stronger alternates 

[Aidy]

How strange, I find that everything avoids kale (including the old boys on site) for me its the one thing I am happy to leave to get on with it, but then word has got out that the chooks love slugs!

[JayG]

Hubballi; have you ever mentioned what your objection to slug bait is?

Slugs and snails seem to be a big problem for you, and the Ferric phosphate versions are not harmful to other wildlife or the environment.

[hubballi]

I have heard that the organic animal "friendly" pellets are harmful to frogs etc.

[JayG]

I have heard that the organic animal "friendly" pellets are harmful to frogs etc.

I haven't, but appreciate that you feel you have to stick with only what you are happy with.

[mumofstig]

Your choice hubballi - are you growing food for you or for the slugs and snails

Cos that's what it boils down to in a small garden.......you must have realised by now, that everything you grow is being eaten...but not by you

If you don't want to use the pellets, or Nemaslug (expensive but works) then you must accept, without complaint, when things get eaten

[kermit]

Sure it wasnt caterpillars?  We have a slug city in our garden but they never touch the kale.   However, each year, various 'pillars manage to strip them back to the stringly bits of the leaves.

Anyway, mine regenerate fine so long as the root structure is well established.

[Growster...]

Your choice hubballi - are you growing food for you or for the slugs and snails

Cos that's what it boils down to in a small garden.......you must have realised by now, that everything you grow is being eaten...but not by you

If you don't want to use the pellets, or Nemaslug (expensive but works) then you must accept, without complaint, when things get eaten

You're right Mum. We would love to keep natural procedures working instead of chemical control, but it's not an easy option.

I suggest that you can do much to have an organic outlook in your garden, by growing everything without chemicals, (we use liquid manure from comfrey, nettles and 6x),  but then take a little help from the spray manufacturers, and knock the pests on the head now and then.

You've really got to, unless you have hours to spend, catching each caterpillar, and hoiking up each slug. I'd be heartbroken if my two rows of kale had been got at like that - as I'm sure Hubbali is - and it ain't nice...

[sunshineband]

We are as 'organic' as possible, but not obsessively so.

A few blue pellets scattered around carefully save our more tender and juicy plants from the maws of slugs and snails, and I collect up dead bodies as they are gross.

This means nothing else gets to eat them, although tbh I thin the chnaces are slight, given the slimy heap they turn into 

It's food for them or food for you Hubbali 

[shokkyy]

I've been using the Growing Success organic slug pellets successfully for a few years now. They work very well and are not supposed to be harmful to anything else but slugs and snails.

[hubballi]

Nemaslug didn't really do anything in my garden.

They have now stripped my other frilly curly kale too. I kid you not it is slugs and not anything else. They even get inside the polycarbonate cells in my greenhouse plastic glass and get stuck there hence making my greenhouse look a mess.

again, what can I do to get the kale to grow as much as possible to give them a better chance, blood fish and bone ?

[BabbyAnn]

blood fish and bone is a slow release fertiliser - not recommended at this stage.  A quick liquid feed high in nitrogen is needed for leafy growth.

[Aunt Sally]

Habbali,

You have a lot of slugs because you have a small, shady, walled garden and you over water and over feed all your plants.  It is slug heaven ! 

Stop watering so much and use some organic slug pellets to kill them.  You will never win against them otherwise,  these are best:

Advanced Slug Pellets

Shop around to get a good price.

[Casey76]

I don't suppose you have tried a beer trap (or two, or three)?

I am also overrun with the huge orange monsters - some of which are over 4ins long! - but I've found that beer traps work very well.