Hints & Tips

Slug Control - the nice way!
There are many ways of controlling slugs in your garden, but it is important to use slug control methods that won't hurt your plants or pets.

The best way to control your slug problems is to stop it before it starts. Slug eggs are just about everywhere in the soil, but they don't hatch unless the conditions are just right. One thing that really helps to control a slug problem is to dig the soil in the spring. This will bring the slug eggs up to the surface, where they will dry out and die. Slugs (and slug eggs) like a warm, dark atmosphere so keep all decaying plants, leaves, old weeds, and other such things out of your garden. Keep the pathways and edges clean and free from weeds. Some plants repel slugs. Plants such as Grapevines, Corn, Red Cabbage, Sunflower, Geraniums, Pumpkin, Ivy, and many herbs such as Ginger, Garlic, Mint, Chives, Basil, Sage, etc are not liked by slugs. To prevent slugs getting at prize plants why not plant some of these plants on the perimeter of your garden.

Reptiles and amphibians may not be overwhelmingly popular, but they will do no harm to you or to your plants but some will eat slugs. Frogs are the best, the most common and the most easily encouraged. They prefer damp sites where slugs abound and hunt by ambushing anything edible that passes. A quarter of their diet frequently comprises slugs. Toads and slow worms eat slugs too and can be helpful in drier parts of the garden, particularly rockeries. Many mammals eat slugs, including badgers and foxes but the best-known slug-eating mammal must be the hedgehog. This creature forages at night, 'hoovering' up worms and slugs, particularly on lawns; unfortunately, like birds and amphibians, it will take ground beetles too. It is to be hoped that the beetles are more successful at escaping than the slugs, and that on balance hedgehogs are doing more good than harm. Birds are the most important of the larger predators. The long list of species known to eat slugs includes, blackbirds, thrushes, robins, starlings, rooks and crows, jays, ducks, seagulls and even owls.

So to help keep down the slug population in your garden, why not encourage one or more of the above to inhabit your garden, by providing the right conditions, for example a wildlife pond (frogs and toads), safe areas for slowworms and hedgehogs an/or bird boxes. Love or hate them check out the following web site http://www.tammyslug.com

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