How to control slugs in the garden without toxic pellets | Personal Finance | Finance
Slugs can be a major nuisance for gardeners as the hungry molluscs can eat through your seedlings and other plants, often leaving large holes in leaves showing where they’ve been. The creatures can be hard to control as they come out at night to tuck into their leafy greens and can quickly work their way through a garden. Fortunately there are several things you can do to manage their numbers.
Mary Reynolds shares several tips for keeping on top of slugs in her book, The Garden Awakening: Designs to Nurture our Land and Ourselves. She urges against using slug pellets as while these do kill the slugs if they eat them, they also kill other animals that eat the slugs, such as birds and frogs.
Instead she offers some “gentler, yet effective” methods for controlling slug numbers in your garden.
Birds and ducks
We may see slugs as a slimy invader, but birds see them as a tasty treat. You can attract birds to your green space by setting up nesting boxes or other habitats that they will enjoy.
Blackbirds, thrushes and starlings like to forage for slugs in gardens and other natural areas, while chickens and ducks will also eat them. If you want to introduce ducks into your garden, the author says two or three should be enough to keep on top of slugs, though she recommends a family unit of one drake and at least four ducks.
Though bringing in these waterfowl is quite the commitment as they will need a pond or water tub and you may need to contain them in a certain area, or they may eat your vegetables and flowers.
Hedgehogs
Hedgehogs also enjoy eating slugs. You can invite them in with ways for them to get in at the borders of your garden, such as pipes at ground level, or you can drill a hole in the wall if you have a walled garden.
Another way to attract hedgehogs is to have a log pile in your garden, which can become a home for hedgehogs.
Roundworms
Roundworms, also known as nematodes, are microscopic parasites that can eat worms. You can order them in powdered form and then water them on the soil.
Ms Reynolds warns that this option can be so effective in wiping out all the slugs that you can affect other wildlife that naturally prey on slugs, so it’s best used only as a temporary way to bring down the slug population.
Frogs
Most gardens can accommodate at least a small pond, and frogs and other amphibians will find their way to your water source once you have it set up. However, the writer warns that frogs are not as good as ducks in controlling slugs, and it’s worth noting that ducks also eat frogs, when trying to cultivate the natural food chain to keep on top of slugs.
Centipedes and beetles
Beetles and centipedes come out at night and enjoy a meal of slug eggs. You can make homes for your insects with materials such as old wooden pallets, bricks, pine cones, leaves and corrugated cardboard.
By stacking these materials, you provided spaces for where the beetles can find shelter.
Copper strips
Creating a copper barrier around your plants will protect them as the copper gives a tiny electric shock to slugs and snails. It’s important to note that the plants need to be completely encircled for this to work, as nimble slugs will otherwise find a way through the gaps.
One technique is to put your seedling trays on a table and then wrap strips of copper around the base of each leg, to protect your young plants.
Picking by hand
If you don’t mind tackling the problem ‘hands on’, you can go out at night yourself and pick up any slugs and snails you find nibbling on your plants. You can put them in a jar and dispose of them as you choose.
The author said she often frees them on the roof of her shed in the morning so the crows can eat them. Although you may feel it’s a constant battle to keep the slugs at bay, Ms Reynolds encourages gardeners to remember that slugs have an important job in nature’s cycle as well.
She said the idea is not to wipe them out but rather to “keep them in balance” with the other creatures sharing the same area.
