The Best Guide for the LS7 Area

Where Did My Lettuces Go?

Where did my lettuces go?

So you've sowed the seeds, watched them germinate, potted on the seedlings, kept them nice and warm and watered until they're big enough to go out into the big wide world, left them in the sunshine for the day to get used to the outdoors, come home and they're covered in slimy trails and eaten to death by slugs and snails.

Every gardener has suffered from the grisly little beasties who seem to pounce from nowhere and chew their way through your baby lettuces, your gorgeous delphiniums, or whatever else it was you were tenderly nurturing.

So what's the cure?  Well is there one at all?  There are lots of theories to keep the horrors away or kill them off and with organic gardening to the fore again there's a trend away from scattering slug pellets all over the garden.  Not just because they are full of chemicals, but also because they can harm garden birds, local wildlife and your pets.....not to mention the fact that all those little blue things look pretty ugly.

One of my favourite mad ways to deal with slugs and snails was in an organic gardening book I read years ago.   You take the outer leaves of a cabbage, put them in the oven to dry out until crisp, spread them with lard and then take them out in the evening and put them round your vegetable and flower beds.   Then, after dark, boil a bucket of water, take a torch and go out to the garden.   By now the slugs should be stuck in the lard and you can lift the cabbage leaves and shake them off into the boiling water.  Well - rather you than me!

Other easier and pretty effective ways are quite well known.  Beer traps work well, just put any dregs of left over beer (if there is such a thing) into saucers around the garden and the slugs will be attracted and drown happily.  Barriers such as crushed eggshells, coffee grounds or just ordinary gravel are supposed to put slugs and snails off because they don't like to cross scratchy materials. 

Expensive, but also effective, is copper tape.  You can buy it in rolls and wrap it round pots, especially if you have prize hostas in pots that you want to protect.   The copper gives the slugs a little electric shock and they scoot pretty quickly.

And with that I'm off to take my own advice.   I've grown French beans again this year and only managed to keep about half of them safe from the enemy.  Time to open another beer...... for the slugs you understand.

  M Fiddes - Ready Planted

Community Comment:

You will need to sign in to post a comment to this article. if you do not have an AboutMyArea account, you can join now for free.

Joined: 23 Apr 2008
Posts: 52

At 16:09 on 25th June 2008, R H commented:

Very useful article. I'll definitely try the beer solution, if I can prise it out of my other half's hand!

[Report this comment as inappropriate]

Joined: 11 Jun 2008
Posts: 11

At 17:30 on 25th June 2008, Aislinn R commented:

This is a brilliant article - a definite must -try , last year saw all my gardening that survived the storms totally devastated by the armies of slugs that came in. Nothing worked - all my organic granules washed away with the rain and they were so expensive - the cabbage and beer sounds a lot cheaper...if I can pinch it off my better half before he finishes it...

Ais

[Report this comment as inappropriate]

Posts: 11

At 23:28 on 26th June 2008, Joanne T commented:

Is it me or does there seem to be more of these little nuisances around? It amazes me every morning I go into the garden and I see all the slimey trails along the patio. Is it also true that salt works?

[Report this comment as inappropriate]