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April 30th, 2006

What do you do about your slugs?

Maddie_C and I are not expert gardeners. We have planted a lot of vegetable seeds in growbags and small pots that are entirely inappropriate for the growing of vegetables. But it might just work. If so we will be laughing all the way past the supermarket vegetable aisle.

One problem that this garden has is slugs. This garden has slugs as its problem. Slugs are a problem in this garden. (Sorry, the other two didn’t sound right.)

We have found a webpage to help though. This is it: Thirteen ways to Stop Slugs. The ‘copper’ idea sounded quite good, so we have surrounded two of the plants with post-1992 one pence and two pence pieces. Apparently pre-1992 one pences and tuppences are no good (But this fact might be made up).

So, what do you do about your slugs? If we get any good answers we can use them at parties.

Update: Three hours later and none of the vegetable seeds have started growing. Is this normal???*

*I do not normally use three question marks, but these are comedy question marks so I am hoping I can get away with it.

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8 Responses to “What do you do about your slugs?”


  1. Jack the Lass says:

    When I had a garden, if I saw a slug I threw a big rock at it. It was very satisfying I must say – it felt kind of Biblical. I did try stamping on a slug once, but I only did it once because the result was pretty gross.

    There is a very good little book about slugs, unsurprisingly called called “The Little Book of Slugs” (edited by Allan Shepherd and Suzanne Galant) which contains lots of tips and methods of getting rid of slugs in non-chemical ways. Some of their tips include surrounding the plants with bran (the slugs eat it, swell up and die horribly), putting them in a polythene bag and suffocating them (my friend does this with snails – should I be worried?), salt (this makes them fizzle apparently), scissors (for some reason this was the one that really grossed me out), beer traps (presumably a more humane extermination tool for those who worry about how the slugs might be feeling at the moment of demise). For the squeamish who can’t cope with the thought of killing the b******s, there is also a section on trapping and barriers (I suspect with imagination the building of ever more ingenious barriers could become quite entertaining).

    If you have real posh coffee with a cafetiere then save the used coffee grounds and surround your plants with them. Apparently the smell makes them lose their appetite. And sharp things (old broken egg shells, sharp gravel) is good because they don’t like crawling over it.

    The other thing you could do (and I imagine this could be quite entertaining in a slippy slidey kind of way) is smear the pots with Vaseline. I understand this is a good squirrel deterrent too, if you have a bird feeder.

    Once your veg have a permanent home (ie in the garden, not in pots/bags) try planting some lavender bushes nearby. The slugs don’t seem to like that (I never had slugs anywhere near my lavender).

    It doesn’t say anything about coins though. I suspect they might be having you on.

    May 1st, 2006 at 9:11 am
  2. Judah says:

    You could always harvest the slugs and eat them instead of the vegetables.
    No, it is not normal to wait three hours then examine your veggie seeds. ;)
    It probably isn’t normal to eat slugs either, but maybe, if you are desperate, it might solve the problem.

    May 1st, 2006 at 9:26 am
  3. Daniel says:

    The metallic content of ‘coppers’ did change in the early nineties. The old ones were magnetic, so must have contained some steel, whilst the new ones aren’t, and so don’t. Apparently the change was made to avoid the value of the metal exceeding the face value of the coin. In my experience the slugs are crafty beasts and will either sneak inbetween the coins where they are only just touching, or steal your cash and hot-foot it down the garden centre and buy themselves a feast. (and yes slugs have feet, albeit one each, so maybe it should be hot-feeting). The only way to protect your plants is completely encapsulate them build little mounds of low value coins stuck together with superglue.

    May 1st, 2006 at 9:46 am
  4. Paul says:

    My sister used to eat slugs, but that was when she was a toddler and she’s 31 now so she might not want to.

    May 1st, 2006 at 9:59 am
  5. Dith says:

    I read a little book about getting rid of slugs, but I can only remember the following, tongue in cheek, one:

    Go around the garden, catching slugs. Then peg them out on the washing line and watch them dry out whilst wiggling and waving gently in the wind.

    You may like to try this…

    …or perhaps you may not!

    May 1st, 2006 at 1:38 pm
  6. Deborah says:

    Slugs definitely don’t like walking crossing slithering over copper, something to do with the copper seting up a small electrical current (electrocuted slugs, fantastic)! You can buy special copper tape in garden centres which will provide a more impenetrable barrier than copper coins. Coins, being round, leave little gaps the slugs can exploit.

    May 1st, 2006 at 2:03 pm
  7. nessa says:

    nemetodes. there’s a product called ‘nemaslug’ at http://www.organiccatalogue.com

    i mean to try it every year and then miss it each time. nemetodes are microscopic living organisms that are a natural enemy of slugs. you get this powder and disolve it in a watering can, and the microscopic things come to life. you water your garden with them and they kill the slugs.

    thing is, it only works on the young slugs not the fully grown ones. so you’re supposed to do it in early april and a second time in (can’t remember when the second lot happens) during the slug breeding season (honest, i’m not making this up).

    but i can never get my butt in gear to spend the money on it before the slugs are adults. so i wait eagerly for the next year, determined to battle my slugs organicly with biological pest control warfare. . . but i always procrastinate it until next time, and i miss the slug killing window.

    good luck.

    May 2nd, 2006 at 12:05 am
  8. nessa says:

    dith, that’s GROSS!

    May 2nd, 2006 at 12:06 am