
I’m inspired by the walled garden at Port Eliot, annual flowers grown from seeds from Higgledy Garden.
One of the joys of gardens is how the same one can vary from one year to the next, as new plants are added, & how the weather affects the size, shape & flowering of plants.
Then there are the pests, which in my experience also vary a little each year.
This year slugs have been the bane of my life. I wonder if new gardeners give up, when they experience gardening in a challenging year, just a thought?
We’ve lived here for 3 years & I thought I was getting to know the garden quite well. I learnt to my cost, in the first year that the gaps in our lovely, Victorian wall harbour slugs & snails, & just how quickly they can demolish small dahlia plants.
You see, I’d got used to a garden at our last house, with well drained soil that didn’t really attract slugs. I won’t go on, this could turn into a rant, so instead, this is what I’ve learned.
Beer-Traps:
Its so satisfying to come out in the morning & find the glass jars of beer full of slugs. They need emptying & refilling every couple of days. The old jam-jars are stuck half-way down into the soil, to save beneficial insects, like ground-beetles falling in, & jars only need to be half full of beer.
So I’ve taken to wandering round the garden in the early evening with a can of cheap, supermarket lager in hand. I hadn’t realised just how cheap it is, which can’t be a good thing … except for slugs.
Barriers:
The raised beds have been covered with micro-netting & held in place with slabs of timber from the stash in the corner of the garden. I’ve hoarded a variety of types over the years, but for this I used small pieces of oak decking left over from a garden years ago.
Finding the right place:
Even in our small garden, plants left in some areas seem to be more vulnerable to slugs, so I’ve moved pots around to what appear to be safer places, & most of the time this has worked.
Hedge your bets:
Don’t keep all your seedlings & baby plants in the same place, that way there are reserves elsewhere if the little blighters polish off a whole tray of seedlings overnight. Sow more seeds than you think you’ll need.
Water in the morning, but not too much:
Slugs come out at night & are much happier on damp soil. More recently I’ve watered the garden if the soil has got to the stage of looking pale & dry, though small seedlings will need a little more water than more mature ones.
In any case, the water butts are empty, & I don’t want to use water unnecessarily.
Use a combination of all of the above:
Don’t wait to see if one thing works before trying something else. This is what I did at first, then realised that an all-out attack is what’s needed because as the summer rolls on, time is not on your side.
Organic remedies:
I was so tempted to use slug pellets, but instead tried the ones containing ferric sulphate & certified for organic use. Unfortunately they didn’t make any difference, though the RHS have done research which shows them as being effective, so they’d be worth trying.
I used nematodes in the second year here, but they didn’t help much either. I think this was because it didn’t rain much & the soil has to be kept damp for 2 weeks after the nematodes have been watered onto the soil.
I found nematodes very effective against vine-weevil, so don’t be put off by my experience. Maybe I didn’t apply them correctly, or left it too late?
Reasons to be cheerful:
My garden has been a challenge this year, & to stop myself from feeling down & very cross about it all, I’ve looked at the things that have worked well & made me feel happy.
The roses have been wonderful, I’ve enjoyed seeing them in the garden, picking them for inside & making up jam-jars of little arrangements to give to friends.
The herbs have been delicious, I’ve used fresh thyme, chives & mint on a daily basis.
It’s a simple strategy, but it has cheered me up.
This is the type of netting I’ve used here, see the R.H.S. info about slug pellets here, & have a look at Higgledy Garden seeds here.
I hope you’re enjoying your garden.
Jill
Have you tried watering with garlic water? I’ve found it helps keep the slugs and snails off my lupins. There are various”recipes” online but I tend to just boil up a bulb of garlic till it’s disintegrated then strain off the juice and add a tablespoon or two into a 4.5 litre watering can and use that for watering.
Hi Vikki, this is one I haven’t heard of before, so thank you, & I’ll give it a try.
PS – that’s a whole bulb… Not just a clove – slugs seem to not like the taste! I’m starting to abandon growing the things they do like!
Its difficult to predict what the slugs in my garden eat, it varies in different parts of the garden!
Hi Jill,
I use the hunter gathering technique!
Just as the sun is dropping in the evening I go looking for the little critters. Usually with a sharp knife to cut them in half and leave them on the lawn for the birds in the morning. It works well. No pesticides and a nice meal for the birds. Job done!
Hi Ricky, this is definately one to add to all the things you can do to get rid of them, I used to be squeamish about cutting them in half,but not any more! Also I like the that the birds get to eat them.