Slugs: Some answers
I was meant to be writing about roses. I can’t think about roses. All I can think about is slugs.
If this is too much for you, scroll to the bottom and I have put all the roses links there. I am all for fantastical escapism and pretending that the garden is not ravaged by slugs. It turns out I am not the only one. When I talked about slugs on Instagram, more people than I ever could have imagined said that they too have had both their plants and their growing confidence absolutely battered by this season. However, in amongst the pain, were some solutions. And I am all for seeing the hope. Here are some of the things people swear by, and some of the things that I have tried.
Be aware though, like so many things in life, there was one person saying that copper mesh worked a dream, for every one person that said they’d tried it, and it didn’t. But I’ve done a discourse analysis on all the comments, and here goes.
Mulching
Suggestions:
Sheep’s wool (tried this, didn’t work at all for me, and I nearly lost my precious Clematis fusca by trying)
Perlite
Coffee grounds
Oat bran
Egg shells (bake them first to avoid rats)
Tricky if you have a big garden, because you do need to go heavy handed on this. Those who talk about putting a collar of something around the neck of the plant inevitably failed because the slugs and snails will put up with a little short-term pain for the reward of getting to their prize of your seedlings. But where do you get absolutely loads of coffee grounds? Even if you go to a coffee shop or Waitrose, you’re never going to over a whole dahlia patch with it. You know what I do have quite a few of though? Thistles. I’m definitely trying them.
And a late addition that came to me via a follower, pine cones. If you have a lot of pine cones, this would be amazing for containers, although are there enough for a whole flower bed?
Beer traps
Again, one for those with smaller garden, because how do you afford to cover over half an acre with yoghurt pots of beer? However, I have used them with great effect in huge pots. A collar of brambles to keep new snails from getting in, and a beer trap for getting rid of the slugs already there. Once I am confident that I have got slug free soil, I will mulch with thistles (again) and move the beer traps on to somewhere else.
Suggestions for the best, most attractive, drinks:
Guinness (alcohol free also works)
Peroni
Cider
Given that I am in Somerset, I can get flagons of scrumpy for a few pounds, so I am definitely going to try that. One of the worst bits of this working is emptying them, so that there is room for more slugs. A top tip for that, take two yoghurt pots that fit inside one another, and punch holes in one of them. This one then acts as a sieve so put it back inside the other one, fill them both with beer (or cider), and then just remove the holed one, tip out the casualties, and put it back. No need to tip out the beer, just top it up when you need to.
Metal
I’ve always been told that slugs and snails won’t cross metal because it gives them electric shocks. This means that you can create a boundary with copper tape around the lips of pots or, if braver, along the tops of raised beds. Copper tape seems to be hard to source at the moment, probably because every gardener in the land is trying to get hold of some. I have therefore tried to be a little bit ingenious and am using florist mesh (made of rather lovely copper) to train the first inches of sweet peas up, just to try and harness the zap. Unfortunately, lots of people wrote to me and said it didn’t work, and that you need to attach a battery to it to get anything to work.
Not entirely daunted, I just scaled up. We removed a hot water cylinder from the attic next door and, once we took off all the insulation, it is a rather beautiful copper urn. We’ve been debated for ages how to make the most of it, but I’ve decided to have it cut into slices like salami, giving me four huge copper rings. Each one will have a courgette in it. Once I have resowed some, obviously. The first sowings disappeared long ago.
This does bring me to something else, which is that anything that isn’t in open ground is going to be easier to defend. Many of the dahlias that I put into beds are being lifted again (if there are still intact growing tips or eyes, they should recover) and tucked into big zinc dustbins. Again, I am hoping that they won’t want to climb up those long, metallic sides, and I will add a beer trap to each one until I am confident that they are clear, and then mulch with thistles.
What I am learning about slug and snail defence is belt and braces.
Wildlife
So, not a quick fix and I’ve been planning this for months now, but ducks got great reviews from the people who had tried them. There was only one dissenting voice, who said that nineteen ducks and twenty chickens have failed to make a dent in a population of Scottish slugs. I am choosing to go with the majority though, and I am now committed to ducks.
Why ducks and not chickens? There are lots of reasons why chickens are easier, including not needing water and putting themselves to bed. But chickens are significantly less keen on slugs and snails, and quite easily get overwhelmed and go back to worms. I want the worms to keep my soil aerated. Ducks are slug eating machines…
One of the reasons, apart from the obsessive fox-proofing that they require, that I have held back on ducks if that they do also eat frogs and toads. Toads are often suggested as a good option for keeping on top of slugs and creating habitats which support them might be a great way of restoring the natural balance of the ecosystem. However, I have toads and they don’t even dent the population explosion of molluscs. I know that the most appropriate thing to do would be to wait for a re-adjustment, for the toad population to also explode, and all my problems to be solved. However, I just don’t quite believe it’s going to happen and, unless we are to starve this year, I can’t wait.
However, if you can’t or won’t have ducks, it can’t hurt. Here are the most toad-attracting things you can do:
Give them water. A shallow bowl. Even a washing up bowl, although these are steep sided so add a plank for creatures to climb out and put in some rocks so there are shallow areas. Dig a hole to fit the container, and let it fill with rain water.
Put in plants around the water to give shelter.
Leave some wild areas undisturbed. The time that I accidentally come across toads is when I am venturing into beds that I rarely weed.
Create log piles or dead hedges, and then leave them well alone.
I never weed this bit…
The most surprising solution
Ok, so one last absolute curve ball, I had a suggestion for glow worms. Apparently, these are beetles, and a rather fabulous addition to any garden, and they are very very keen on eating slugs and snails. How I get my hands on any, I have absolutely no idea, but if I find out, I’ll keep you posted.