How to Stop Slugs Eating Your Plants (100% Organic)
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- Опубліковано 27 тра 2022
- Slimy slimesters and slippery thieves, stealing our seedlings and snaffling our salads! Finally, the time has come to give slugs the boot and protect our precious crops using only natural, wildlife-friendly methods.
Gardeners and slugs can live together in relative harmony! Find out how in this week's episode as Ben debunks the myths and the tales of slippery slugs and slimy snails...
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The comment about "cheap beer" made me remember a slug remedy we used a few years back. Just mix some flour and yeast with water and stir it up. Smells a lot like beer and seems to attract the slugs just as well. I put the mixture in a plastic cottage cheese container, cut a hole in the top so the slugs could get in, but they never came out. The top slows evaporation down a bit.
I was just thinking about that. Mix sugar, yeast and water.
It’s what I use and it actually does work. Hubble was horrified at the prospect of ‘wasting’ good beer 🤣
@@tesstess3371 Well, I used flour instead of sugar, but sugar might work.
Great idea, thanks for sharing this Peter.
I don't drink beer, so even the 'cheap nonsense' would be an extra outlay. But I do have planted fish tanks, and I use a mixture of sugar and yeast in water to generate CO2 in the tank. Once the yeast has exhausted itself and there's no CO2 left, I have a bottleful of sweet, boozy-smelling water that I have been throwing away. Now it looks like I've found a use for it! Waste not want not! Thank you for the tip!
For 2 years now I've used vapour rub, wiping a thin layer about an inch wide around pots and beds, works an absolute treat, it stays on for the whole season, it doesn't leave dead slugs around my garden leaving them for the predators and own label brands are less than a £1 a jar, time and money saving.
Great tip, thanks for sharing!
Wow great tip. How do you smear it round a bed In the ground ?
On the side of the bed near the bottom rather than the grass I imagine! Im Going to give this a go
@@TheBettyBoopnl With my tongue.
@@WolfeTone17-98 🤣
I have been following your channel for years. I love how precisely you give your information without rambling like many others do, and you have a great sense of humor while teaching us. I always look forward to your videos!
I agree. The videos are not long and boring. Perfect for a busy parent.
Thanks so much guys! :-)
Yes.... I hate ramblers.... or those who talk all sorts of unrelated nonsense and i especially dislike those ridiculous, insecure channel creators who gotta tell you to LIKE SHARE SUB every few min. Even twice is too much.
My record in counting these commercial breaks was 8 in a 1 hr show. And it wasn't just a 5 sec reminder... it would get the guy off track and he start selling his merch and he start talking about other things so the break ended up taking 5 min or becoming the topic.
Soooo annoying!!!
After multiple complaints about his incessant reminders, as if we are all stupid children... I UNSUBBED!!!
When we moved to our new house, the neglected garden was full of slugs. I promised our children 5 eurocent per slug/ snail and a little bonus after each 10 slugs. We counted them at the kitchen chalk board. To my own surprise it worked perfect. Sometimes they found 40 slugs in 1 round. I’ve never had better slug hunters. :-) The game lasted a few weeks, but was very effective. Now (4 years later) we still have a normal population.
What a wonderfully inventive way to deal with them!
Entertaining and exercising the kids, plus teaching some math, as well as getting rid of slugs. You are a genius parent.
Five cents?! A bit tight no?!
@@DrownTheRabbitHole Lol
What did you do to the slugs?
I've had good success with planting decoy seedlings with my prized seedlings. I kept losing zucchini seedlings and finally out of desperation started planting mustard seeds in a ring around my zucchini (or in a proposed planting spot, a few days ahead of time, and then plant the seedling in the patch of mustard seedlings). The slugs seem to prefer the mustard and spared the zucchini (or zinnias, etc). As the mustard grows I can thin or remove as desired - but it's also a fantastic trap plant for cabbage moths and aphids, so I tend to let some grow to maturity throughout the garden. Anecdotally, pests seem to prefer the mustard plants to other brassicas as well. The bees and especially hover flies love it. I just buy mustard seed from the supermarket spice aisle.
I've never seen slugs going over my mustard, but since it's growing everywhere in my garden, they might be tackling 90% of it without me noticing!
I've not bought seeds in three years now, and have tried doing some mustard condiment with it, that's fabulous!
Probably one of the most underestimated plats to me : grows all year long, loved by bees and other pollinators (especially if you grow it during winter and it flowers really early), terrific young leaves in salad, I love the green seeds in salads as well, dried seeds goes into all pickling recipes, slow cook meals, and obviously mustard condiment... Terrific as green manure, and if you let it grow and dry on the spot, perfect hollow stems for all kind of ladybugs and friends to spend the winter...
And now you tell me it's good against slugs?
All Hail to The Mustard, savior of the garden :D
Do you also eat your mustard greens? I love them in salads. Great spicy taste!
@@peterbergel Yes, and the flowers too. I love them.
@@lysamerekvart9471 It's definitely one of my favourite plants! :)
Mustard is definitely a super plant in so many ways!
so interestingly, I've just found an excellent slug and snail lure, completely by accident. I have a stone mushroom about 8 inches high that bought years ago, and I finally decided to paint it. I went for the traditional red and white toadstool colours and ever since, each night when I go out in the garden, its covered in slugs and snails. I pick them off and relocate them to a nearby field. they all seem to be on or heading for the white spots. I think you could apply the colour scheme to any rock and have the same result.
What an interesting effect there Steve - you're clearly onto something there!
I think it has something to do with the smell of the colour .
Ha! Great idea! I have noticed they do like the Amanita mushrooms...
@steves7271 Your color theory track for the slugs at my house. I don’t have a garden nor do I intentionally grow anything in my flower bed areas. However, all of the trim on my house is white. I’ve noticed a lot of slugs gathering on the door over the last couple of weeks while it’s been very rainy here. The white also attracts a lot of bugs, especially flies, mosquitoes, “mosquito hawks”, and June bugs.
If white attracts slugs, could any other colour deter them?
This is the best slug control video I’ve seen! I agree that removing them to other areas really does reduce their population in the garden. Some of your tips are new to me and I’ll give them a try. (I usually just collect them and take them for a walk into the woods to settle in a new area.) I especially love the humane and environmentally friendly approach you seem to have to controlling them ❤️ thank you for this!
They're all creatures that deserve a break!
Thank you! We love going on walks! =)
In the winter months, when there are no more vegetables in the garden, I let the chickens run loose, then I have less problems with snails in the spring.
That's a great way of getting a clean sweep - smart move.
Honesty is the best policy... calling Coors what it is -- "cheap nonsense" -- you don't want to waste good beer on bad slugs.
I had a good laugh over that one! 😂
Yeah, I caught that too, use that cheap US beer...Coors, Colorado kool-aid.
@@maffmaheed1447 Well, to be honest... Who wouldn't like a nice cold Guinness? If you're deciding to treat your slugs for beer, then respect them and serve them beer, not piss :D
Recently found out they very much like Sainbury's Depot 90.
£1 for 4 x 440ml cans.
@@Ralf1erudd I would feel the need to explain to the staff that no, I don't intend to actually drink it!
Around pots , Vaseline is a great barrier do a strip of it around your pot about 2 to 3 inches wide , the slugs can’t grip to it and fall off and it’s waterproof , or do aa ring of double sided sticky tape with salt stuck on one side they touch it and soon bugger off without killing them .😁❤️🇬🇧👍
I tried to be the bigger man...but after so many destroyed seedlings, I am firmly in the "death to the slugs" camp
Waiting for some vegan activists to accuse you of slug genocide....
me too!!!...how about cat litter?, that's the only thing that works for me, but then you must hide the corpses from the birds so they don't meet the same fate.
i had a huge tray of healthy coriander and bell pepper seedlings, all eaten the next day :( actually so sad
I give them their first flying lesson free!
On the end of my trowel, flicked over the other side of the stream.
@@Snowdonia_Hideaway I haven't found anything to work better than the scissor method. I don't like cutting the big slugs, but the small ones I don't care about, they do much more damage to plants than bigger ones because I can hardly see them. Worms take care of their remains overnight. The bigger ones I just chuck far away, this method, cutting them or chucking them far away has by far worked the greatest. Slug pellets don't work (and I've tried it many times).
These beer methods are pointless in my opinion. Looking for them manually and chucking them is far more efficient.
I stopped letting slugs be in my compost pile. I believe their eggs are then transplanted into the garden when you move in the compost which then reinfests your beds with slugs. Homemade beer traps work excellently. As an aside, one year a raccoon broke into the garden and drank all the beer traps! She was after the ripe strawberries and added a drink along with the berries!
Oh wow - I bet the raccoon had an interesting afternoon after that!
Snails and slugs are thriving in rainy and cool Northern Ireland, so gardening is a bit of a challenge for those who don't keep chickens roaming around and don't want to use chemicals! Thanks a lot for sharing your tips and tricks!😉🌱🌿🥦🍎🌶
eggshells are also a really good way to prevent slugs from targeting certain plants! I also tried washing my dishes with eggshell powder for the first time while I was making my YT video and I was SHOCKED at the results! 😮
I went slug and snail hunting after dark for a couple of weeks and that really helped reduce the numbers. Good to known we can relocate them to the compost heap where they will do some good.
I use a garlic wash on my hostas, there’s lots of recipes online, but it’s basically garlic boiled in water then used diluted in a watering can. Slugs really don’t like it. You have to use it more often in rainy weather 👍🏻
Great idea!
Would wild garlic boiled do the same job? Just an idea so I don't use up my garlic
How about spraying the boiled garlic water on the plants themselves Will it work?
Unfortunately, the slugs in my part of the NW, USA love to eat the allium family....
Slugs eat my garlic like it's chocolate also my onions
Something you may want to try is, all the old bits of lettuce that you clean up to try and discourage the slugs, stick them under your planks of wood, so they get attracted to shelter and food all in one crafty (and free!) trap.
Smart move Dean, I like it!
@GrowVeg I was cringing when you were holding and touching the slugs with bare hands.
@@Key-Pen_it_real_1Aagreed. I don’t MIND plucking them up with my bare hands, however the slime just doesn’t wash off very well, and takes 4-5 washings or even more to get it off my hands 🤢
The best most comprehensive slug video I've seen! Excellent resource - will be sharing with my community garden.
Thanks so much for sharing Rebecca, that means a lot.
We've avoided tilling but tried it last year and saw a significant reduction in slugs. I've also found coffee grounds to be effective. They don't seem to like to crawl over them.
I just tested this and coffee grounds do not work, but cinnamon seems to work very well.
Maybe luck but I layered my ever hospitable cold frame with sandpaper and also my shelves in the greenhouse, it had a huge effect. Most seedlings survived for the first year ever. The more coarse the better. No area was left uncovered and it seemed to survive the rain too. Yes I will relay it this year but think I've got my answer. Planting out to the main garden this year I'm going to create some sandpaper rings and see how that goes.
Great result Ian. 😀
My Grandad did the same and dusted it with talcum powder each week, he said it was the best solution he ever found.
Brilliant idea! Thank you.
Dang!!! 😖 Guess what I found in my old garage last week and just threw out?
Isn't that always what happens!??!
Thanks again Ben, I love your posts. I’ve read that the beer is smelt by slugs miles away and this way you actually attract even more slugs to your garden
I can only go by my experiences is that I have found they help. It may draw in slugs from a little further, but it seems to be a good way of corralling them into one place for removal.
Thanks for yet a great video! I love your non cruel perspective and advice - very helpful!
Your channel, along with Self Sufficient Me, has been invaluble to learning more about gardening for me. Keep up the great work!
Thanks Chad, appreciate that. Love Self Sufficient Me too - great channel. 😀
Love your shooting angle - sprawled out straight on the ground, putting everything into perspective.
GrowVeg is definitely my favorite gardening channel
I'm 2 Floors up. No Slugs. Sometimes Woodlice though. 👍
Mind your Dogs with Slugs & Snails, you don't want them eating them. Lungworm.
TFS GV, & take care too everyone. ❤🙂🐶
Brilliant options presented Ben. I’m going out to my shed now to throw away the slug pellets. You are the David Attenborough of gardening 👍
Cheers John - high praise indeed!
I just discovered and tested a way to stop slugs and snails that really is 100% successful - for 15 years my veg crops have been roughly 70% destroyed by slugs/snails despite trying EVERY method I found on UA-cam and elsewhere. I came across a system of putting copper or corrosion resistant wire around the boards on raised beds that is then connected to a 9 volt torch battery and watched a lot of videos showing that the electric shock makes the creatures shy away and claimed 100% success. I did the set up and watched most slugs and snails just cross the wires to reach my veg! Then I connected a 12 volt car battery and hey bingo, most were incinerated and some gigantic ones immediately turned away resulting in not finding one slug or snail or damage to plants in the past month. Of course if you object to slug/snails being killed its not for you. I am a big fan of GrowVeg and hope the channel will test this method and share with fellow veg growers!
Love your energy, your enthusiasm and excitement, and the time you put into these videos
They are deeply appreciated and insightful!
I'll be sure to put these into action 🥰🙏🏼
Love and Light!
Thanks so much, really appreciate that! Love and light right back at yer! :-)
You can also make slug bait with some bakers yeast, sugar, water, and flour. The sugar/flour/water feeds the yeast which offgas and attracts slugs! Beer works well, but if you don't want to waste your last ale it's a good workaround
Excellent tip and a great way to save precious beer!
You don’t have to use beer in your slug trap. Here’s an alternative home-made recipe:
1 cup water
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon flour
1/2 teaspoon dry yeast That’s all folks… it’s the yeast they’re after, not the beer. 😘
You're just making beer with that homemade recipe, but yeah, it doesn't need to come from a can.
Thank you
@@TheSamba37 Funny, I don’t see any hops on my list of ingredients, but I’m happy to can it up if you wish. How much “Slugger Beer” would you like to buy….a case, a 6-pack, or just a can?
@@rrbb36 Beer doesn't need hops to be beer. It's a flavouring, nothing more.
@@Nitecrow314 Wow, it’s amazing how rare a genuine sense of humor has become. And since you seem to prefer to be so very serious, as a PRACTICAL matter, MOST beer does indeed contain hops as a flavoring agent. Have a beer and TRY to have a lovely day.
I grow extra cabbage and lettuce. Pull leaves off, lay about 200mm away from your tender plants, go out when dark and collect them up to move on.
What a great idea!
Great video! I tried all sorts of things but beer seems to work best. I also discovered that marigolds are their favorite plant to eat. I planted a variety of flowers in a group and the marigolds were eaten down to nubs almost overnight. They also nibbled on the sunflowers but didn't touch the calendulas. They started a bit on the nasturtiums once they finished the marigolds, but not too much. Next I'm going to plant decoy seedlings of them, much like Uschiaala did with mustard. By the way, they will also hide under cardboard.
Marigolds eaten to a stump is something I'm also very familiar with Alice!
Very educational. Also I never tire of your enthusiasm which inspires me to get going in my garden.
Thanks Joanne. :-)
My grandad used to cover the edges of his garden beds with coarse sandpaper dusted with talcum powder, it didn't stop them but the dry sharp surface reduced the amount of slugs willing cross over it and the trails were clearly visible so he knew how many he needed to find and remove.
Edit - They all went over the hedge into the nearby woodland, usually as far as he could throw.
Great technique.
That's a really good idea that I've never heard before. I will have to try it.
One thing I’ve done that’s not mentioned here is turning my soil up and over at the end of the growing season once overnight frosts start. From what I understand, it disrupts the next generation. I did this last year and it seems to be giving me a terrific result, and thank goodness because between them and the cabbage moths, my poor veggies and I were STRESSING lol
Glad you've managed to get on top of them - a big relief!
with what tools did you manage that? am a complete beginner
Since attracting all of the birds with feeders a few years back, I rarely ever see slugs anymore, there's a couple of snails but there seems to be a weekly massacre looking at the shells on the slabs. Touch wood, noones eaten any of my seedlings so far, even the local squirrel jumps over them to the feeders and ignores everything in the beds.
A few years ago we left/forgot about a Halloween pumpkin on our patio, I can't remember now if it had mostly disappeared or had been hollowed out, either way something had eaten it, and surrounding it was about 50 snail shells, yeah, it looked like a massacre had happened, I felt pretty traumatised for quite a while by all the "skulls" piled up, but that year we had almost no slugs or snails, and hardly any since!
@@maffmaheed1447 👍😆
Yes! Feed your local bird population
My neighbor overfeeds the local birds, so they barely even pay attention to the snails and slugs, unfortunately. All they do is fly about in her garden day in day out.
I live in a clay soil area and slugs own this place. Planted out marigolds , woke up with 1/2 of them gone, flowers and leaves. Following night, at 11pm, went out with a torch, a plastic tub with hot and very salty water, and metal pegs to pick the slugs up. picked about 500 slugs 😫 Yes I was counting. these are just the ones I found at that particular time! They we’re eating all my plants and flowers. They were on my mint plants, onions/chives, leeks and all. No plant is slug proof at all. I’m sick of them.
Wow! That's an incredible result from collecting the slugs though - you must have been very determined!
Very much determined. Thanks for this video. I will follow your techniques too since it’s the beginning of the season. I can plant mindfully and do preventative actions. So I don’t suffer as much 😅
I've always found slugs and snails to be quite cute, so I really like the idea of just relocating them to the compost!
They're not all bad are they!
You do make me smile Ben - thank you for entertaining as well as informing us! :)
You've most welcome - thank you for watching. :-)
Great advice thank you, you always make me giggle, I just wanted to remind everyone that DE can also harm the pollinators and we all know that our bees are precious 🐝 so please use it carefully.
Great info on slug control. Thanks! I couldn't help but laugh at the idea of intentionally leaving standing water to attract frogs... you must live in a very magical place with no mosquito control issues!!! I am constantly battling standing water to prevent my yard being hospitable to my personal summer enemy #1!
Yes, very lucky that my climate is so benign. No mosquito problem here. Glad you enjoyed the video. :-)
I particularly liked the trick of using them for compost.
Thank you Mr Ben : )
The nematoads for vine weevil and slugs work really well.
I played over and over the part in your video of you singing. I placed my cell phone in my garden with your melodious tune and all of my slugs rolled over and died!
🤣
I often have that effect! The plants on the other hand absolutely love the singing...
@@GrowVeg I feel your pain!
I've been sprinkling Epsom salt around my plants, mulching with aromatic cedar shavings and spritzing everything with essential oils, such as peppermint, mixed with a little water and a tiny bit of a surfactant like vegetable glycerin. I also installed bird feeders and planted lots of shrubbery that attract birds and bees. Our climate is damp and cool with lots of rain, so the gardens have little chance to dry out. Between the slugs and the wildlife it's a constant battle to grow anything all the way to harvest!
Sometimes gardening does feel like a real battle!
I absolutely love your videos! They really make me yearn for a larger garden
Thank you. I am sure you have a beautiful garden.
I love your videos. I do not live in an area where slugs are a problem, but I love the information and the way you present it!!!
Thank you. :-)
Where do you live? I think I need to move there!!
Excellent to the last second. Thank you for this video. Take care and have a great weekend, DA
Cheers Donald!
I do prefer the trap-and-relocate method. It's made a good dent in my snug problem and I have neighbouring lizards, hedgehogs and frogs so they've hopefully been enjoying my efforts. It's not perfect and I've lost a few seedlings but most of my plants are thriving. Thanks for the video x
Seems like a more civilised way of dealing with slugs for sure Christina.
I have over fifty pot's of flowers in my front garden and use seven slug traps around my hosta's. The rest of my pots rarely get attacked which include agapanthus, salvia's, alpines, fuchsia's, hebe's, daylilies, African daisy's, alstroemeria's , cranesbill geranium's, delosperma. In the flowerbeds I have eight slug traps placed beside hostas. The bait I use in the traps is water, sugar, flour and dry yeast.
Great suggestion, thanks for sharing this. 😀
LOL! Great thumbnail! Thank you for all your inspiration and information!
I've made a border of crinkled up tin foil that has worked amazingly so far, but hardly aesthetically pleasing or long term 😅 so I'll be trying some of these. The critters always get relocated to the compost heap to speed things along 👍
Garter snakes are great slug defence. I have two photos of snakes living in my garden, swallowing whole, slugs 2-3” in length!!! Those are the slugs that escaped my nightly slug hunts and avoided the beer pots, which work really successfully. Thank you for an informative video.
Stay organic 🙏😍👍
Wow - what an impressive thing to have witnessed.
Hi Ben…nuts as always!😍
Popping a sand path around the compost heap hinders the varmints trail to where the veggies are greener 🍀 Thanks for the constant entertainment while learning 🍓🥜🐌
Top tip, cheers Suzanne!
I relocate my slugs and snails to my chicken coop. The chickens love it. The slugs and snails not so much...
Couldn't work. Chickens don't eat slugs, only snails.
I only find a slug on rare occasions. 99% are snails. You are probably right about the slugs. I just assumed they were being eaten along with all of the snails. Have a good evening.
I did a test with copper tape about five years ago, similar pots/compost/plants and the one I used tape on was slug free all year...the other was not and I've used tape ever since. Double the strips up to increase width.
Do you put the tape on the stems of the plants?
do you connect a 9 volt battery to it? two strips of copper 5 mm apart with the battery positive terminal connected to one strip and the negative to the other strip, as the slug/snail crosses the two strips it gets a mild shock and retreats. The battery lasts at least a year as its only shorting with a slug going across it.
I think chicken wire around the grow beds and some vulcanic gravel does the job as well. They dont like crossing the sharp objects.
Having tried many methods the only system I have found to be 'almost' successful is an electrified fence. No joke! two strips of wire stapled 6mm or so apart around my raised beds and a battery in a waterproof box linked across. It does not kill them but certainly gives them a headache when the complete the circuit. A couple of hunting trips at night to clear up any that were within the boundary before switch on and (hopefully) my veggies will survive. I say 'almost' successful as I have spotted a few clever ones arching their body over the second wire as they slither across (ha ha). Got to hand it to them, for such a small creature they are very inventive. I suspect to see subsequent generations abseiling in from above or leaping over with a motorcycle 'Great Escape' style!
What an intriguing setup. I hope it manages to keep most of them off.
I attract and collect slugs by putting some food scraps under a piece of wet cardboard weighted down with a rock. In the morning I check each of the traps and collect the slugs. Really works well!
I love your videos and always look forward to them. Thanks for all of the great slugging ideas.
Great method there Jeanette. :-)
Great video. Informative and fun. 👍🐌🐌🐌
Hi Ben. Ive found in my home garden and allotment normal play sand stops slugs. I use it around the outside and floor of my green house and around young plants. Planks
I put out for a few weeks. The rest I leave up to our frogs, toads, and resident hedgehog. Yet still on occation I use Nemetoads if I think the slugs and snails are becoming too prolific. Love the video especially the google eye head set. lol sould be a regular feature. 😂
Allotment owner and pretend gardener. I follow your ideas, advice and guidance. My friends at the allotment think I'm a great gardener. Not: its all you. So thanks for making me look like I know what im doing.
Lots of love and best wishes Kim x
Thanks for the very kind comments Kim. As a gardener you are always learning, and I'm almost certain your success as a gardener is down to your diligent attention and care. :-)
Love your channel, been watching it for tips for our allotment.
I don’t like to harm anything so am looking for natural alternatives.
One thing I’ve learnt is slugs don’t like onions or garlic. I planted some radishes in the onion patch and they left the radishes alone, planted elsewhere they obliterated them in 2 days.
Going to plant lettuce and chard with the spring onions and leeks and where the onions were to see if the scent still puts them off!
What an interesting find - thanks so much for sharing that. :-)
Excellent. I am sharing this video far and wide.
Thanks so much! :-)
I love your Videos Ben always so full of great info and explanations. Thank you. 👍👌
Thanks! :-)
It wasn't near my veg thank heaven, but the other day I counted no less than 36 slugs in the back yard. 36! I did find some on an overwintered green bell pepper plant. I pick them off with leaves and throw them back into the woods. Living in the deep, dark, and dank eastern hemlock forest makes slugs a part of daily life. They really like beer. I mean they REALLY like beer.
So do I 😊
That’s a good way to deal with them. Just hurl them back!
I tried the saucers of beer for slug traps. Didn't catch any slugs but found out my dog had a drinking problem.
😮
Loved this! Thank you!
Excellent video, thank you!
I’m thinking of using all of your tips at once, to make sure I definitely nail them!
I have oranges, beer and a head torch at the ready.
All set to go Harry!
Overturned cabbage leaves have been working for me, similar to your citrus suggestion. Thank you for all of this. So helpful to see all the ways you suggest battling slugs. I was expecting to find big slugs in my garden when I went hunting for them, like the ones you show, but mine have been tiny and whitish pink. I’m guessing babies?
Yes, quite possibly Isabelle. Love your use of cabbage leaves - that way you can dump the whole lot onto the compost heap I guess.
This is probably my third year gardening at my house and this is the first year where I’m really having a problem with slugs.
I’m currently using the beer technique and it’s working but I seem to have more coming as my bean plants are being destroyed right now.
I’m also going to try the watering in the morning instead of during the evening.
Great video btw.
I think watering in the morning will help, so things are a bit drier at night. And just being meticulous in removing potential hiding places.
Love the humour.....thanks Ben🥬🌶🥕
Just tried the wooly idea but as i don't have a sheep or a dog... have been using the lint from the dryer and my vacuum cleaner bag contents. So far so good :-)
Glad it's working for you Nomi.
I started sprinkling chilli powder in my small garden to deter the neighbours' cat (she liked my garden as her toilet, sadly) and it not only annoyed the cat, I also noticed the slugs were eating the powder and leaving my seedlings alone. At some point when the chilli powder got wet from the rain, the slugs were kind of rolling in it (they looked like those corn cheese puffs coated in chilli...) and other slugs were eating them. Quite disgusting! Slugs are cannibals! Anyway, chilli powder works really well to deter the cat and distract the slugs, so hey, give it a try. I live in a very windy area and we get plenty of rain, too, so I have to keep on reapplying it. But it works.
What a great tip - thanks for sharing this Andrea.
I don't think I can ever each a corn cheese puff again without thinking of cannibal snails who love spicy meat.
@@DeniseSyrett Hahah!
I tried cayenne pepper on a tomato that had been munched. A light sprinkle on
the plant, soil, and damaged tomato. The next morning, I found more damage.
Game on. I coated the 1 damaged fruit with additional pepper. Next morning,
it was gone. No idea what it was, but it never came back.
Thanks heaps. There’s a whole bunch of stuff for me to try here.
I had mine hedge hogs in my garden last autumn and seen 3 this spring,
still an armada of slugs...
Found more than fifty in my green house, hope they are all collected by now...
Thanks, Ben.. I appreciate that you relocated the slugs. I almost didn't watch this video 😂
Glad you did though Helen. :-)
Great video! I like to use a flour sifter to apply the diatomaceous earth. Easy to handle, precise, and don't get it on my skin. Cheers!
Great tip Julie, thanks.
Thanks for the informative and entertaining video.
Fresh STRULCH works very well. I use it for strawberries, runner beans & dahlias. I also have islands of strulch where I can put pots of seedlings when I am hardening them off. 🙂
great information about natural slug control which is so important thank you! one more slug repellant is getting fleece from sheep and placing the fleece around the base of the plant ... the slugs do not like touching the hairy sheep fleece.... and the little slug song was excellent!
Great extra tip, thank you! 😀
I wonder if that technique would work with my German Shepherd's fur.... LOTS of fur available to me!
@@meemkaplan4315 I think so! I have a poodle and I put some of his fur out and it seems to do the same thing
I press in a border of slender wild blackberry branches (very thorny, and they grow everywhere here in the Pacific North West). Although it takes some time to put in place, it is an effective barrier in wet or dry conditions.
Great idea. :-)
Excellent video, thank you.
Great video, very informative 🙏
Thank you for not killing the slugs and just relocating them. All living things have a right to be here
Agreed!
Unfortunately diatomaceous earth will kill every tiny insect that it comes into contact with - big downside would not recommend at all 🙁
I've just realised the frogs/toads we had in our garden until a few years ago were living rent free, as we were riddled with slugs and snails! Then one year left/forgot about a Halloween pumpkin on our patio, I can't remember now if it had mostly disappeared or had been hollowed out, either way something had eaten it, and surrounding it was about 50 snail shells, but that year, and since, we had almost no slugs or snails!
The frogs/toads disappeared that year, too 🤷🏻
How curious - that is a real mystery!
Brilliant informative video with clever phptography and supporting animated graphics! Thanks you very much
Thanks for the kind words. :-)
Some have suggested to me, but I've not tried it yet; is putting copper meat around the base of the plants. You curl it up in a rope and cut it, circling the base of a plant anoy 1-2 inches and it keeps the slugs out. I have mostly use DE and that works well.
Good vid! Two things to add: you can by nematodes tablets to dissolve in water, or you can make your own (the recipes easily found online). One physical barrier that does help is an edge with a sharp angle around your garden bed. Slugs can't crawl over sharp angles, so if you put up a barrier that leans outward and down, they won't be able to crawl into the bed - however, keep in mind that slugs can also dig (the majority of them stay underground at all times), so unless your bed edge is burried around 20 cms deep, you'll still get some slugs in.
Some great advice there, thank you.
I have a sweat scrapper for my horses, it is aluminum and has a curved end. I just scoop up the slugs with that and then sling them off into the woods. I can throw them a good 20 feet or more! I have one hanging in my greenhouse by the door. The sweat scrappers are super cheap and you do not have to get the slime on your hands!
What a great idea!
Thank you, this is very helpful and a great reminder that there are many non-harmful methods of dealing with slugs and snails. I've found beer traps to be the best method, along with picking them off in the early mornings and evenings. To prevent evaporation, I cut the top off a juice or other kind of Tetra Pak drink container. Pour beer into the rest of the container. Turn the top upside down and fit into the container. This allows the slugs to get in but not out, as well as preventing other animals and insects from drowning in the beer. Other than that, I've just accepted that slugs and snails are part of nature, and there will be a small amount of inevitable loss. Thanks again for another great video!
What a great way to keep the beer from evaporating. :-)
@@GrowVeg Thank you! :)
Thanks for the information…. Love that video….. as always!
Cheers Jack!
I've had good luck with diatomaceous earth against the hordes of snails and slugs we have here in the very damp, cool Pacific Northwest of the US. Feed stores usually sell it for far less than garden shops, and a small amount seems to be enough to deter the slimy pests.
Thank you, going to the feed store to buy some!
Great video! It's the " why" information that you provide about slugs that really help. Here's a question. If you put them all in your compost, will their eggs survive to be redistributed into your garden in the soil? They are pretty white and obvious, and a proper heap gets hot.... Just not sure
I'd reckon that gathering the slugs in one place like that will also gather their predators, that (for most of them) also feast on the eggs... If you have hens, set them free on the heap before using it, you'll be sure to ditch any egg left, and add quite a bit of poo to it!
I reckon it would be a bit like dumping all your weeds on one pile - the majority would never make it through so even if a few survived you'd still be making a huge dent on the overall population.
Thank you for sharing
I am also learning from you...And thank you for sharing ..
Hot tip: use chopsticks to pick up the slugs to avoid slimey hands!
Personally I go slug hunting with my garden scissors… ✂️
Great tip!
Very good tips! The only thing (except nematodes I never tried them) that actually works for me are beer traps AND as long as it does not rain (so not very good for Dutch nor English climate lol) is one time I made a circel around my plants with dead sea salt I had laying around. Believe me they won't cross that haha.
I've always understood that salt is not good for plants because it dissolves and contaminates the ground for years.
I relocate mine to the compost heap as well. I also use plastic cloche covers that I slightly bury into the ground around the plants for seedlings until they're big enough to handle a nibble.
Great idea. 😀
That was great Ben! I am like you, I am a re-locator.
Brilliant tips, thank you. Also enjoyed Stevie Wonder impression, and the one of a drying up slug. Think you might have a second option for a career there if you ever need it. 😁 But seriously, I will definitely be using your suggestions. 👍
Cheers for that Rachel! :-)
If you put slugs in your compost, they'll lay eggs in the compost so you're spreading slug eggs