Is the UK facing a slug plague?

[mrsflibble]

my grandad used to go out at dusk time and pick off as many slugs and snails as he could from the plants and shove them in a bucket of water. it was always better if it had been raining during the day. this bucket would be stuck down the back of the shed with a weighted board on top. he'd do this for about a week with the same bucket, then he'd drain the water off into his watering can and stick the gooey mollusc mess on the compost heap. the stuff in the watering can honked, but the tomatoes in the greenhouse loved it.

on a more mingy note, I got some canned snails from france when i was on my honeymoon about 3 years ago. i brought them back to try, opened the tin and couldn't face them because the tin smelt like grandad's snail bucket mixed with herbs.

[Millymollymandy]

Oh gross, that's the worst sounding fertiliser I've ever heard of!

[Shed Head]

What a year we've had! First with the constant wet weather that resulted in many floods and the earth won't be able to keep up with possible heavy rain that is possible in the autumn and winter months.

On top of that, there has been (statistically) a 60% increase in the amount of slugs reported by farmers (read it in body & soul from the Times newspaper).

But it's not just the farmers fields that had the fair share of slugs. It was my next door neighbours and my back garden that had been infiltrated by these pesky little creatures. I

've been growing tomatoes in my nest door neighbours greenhouse and they have been attacked. I wanted to keep the tomatoes as organic as possible, but unfortunately I had to lay slug pellets at the bottom of the tomato plants and that then caused the soil to furr up.

OK so this country is supposed to be a wet place, but not that wet!

[Millymollymandy]

I'm sick of picking them out of my lettuce and having to wash off their poo!

[Annpan]

I wanted to keep the tomatoes as organic as possible, but unfortunately I had to lay slug pellets at the bottom of the tomato plants and that then caused the soil to furr up.

Found out recently that, according to the british wildlife somethingorother you should NEVER lay slug pellets, even the organic ones are poisonous to toads and frogs too...

pellet + slug = poisonous slug + frog = dead frog



So you kill of your greatest ally, needless to say it is a vicious cycle as, when you kill the frog it can no longer eat slugs for you so you get more slugs I know loads of people use them, even those who are organic in all other ways, just thought I would share.


I managed quite well with slug traps this year, though I would have a look and see they were full, come back later and they were completely empty... a froggy feast I think

[wulf]

I still haven't been seeing nearly as many slugs as I would have expected in my garden. On Saturday we moved a pile of branches and leaves that were cut down a couple of months ago. You would expect that to be slug heaven but there was only one slug (albeit a big fat one) and although there were a fair number of snails, even that number was lower than I expected.

Perhaps it is just my habit of sometimes impaling them on sharp sticks and leaving the corpses there as a warning others (very medieval but it seems to be effective! ).



Wulf

[9ball]

I managed quite well with slug traps this year, though I would have a look and see they were full, come back later and they were completely empty... a froggy feast I think

So do all these slugs and froggy feasts mean we will have a plague of frogs next year? hmm, I'm sure I've read something about that once...

[Millymollymandy]

I hope not, at least slugs don't croak!!! Ribbit ribbit!

[Peggy Sue]

I had a thought this morning as I removed a juicy specimen from my lettuce and showed it to the dog (most disinterested she was)- now if you are squeemish don't read this- I wondered if you cooked the slugs if the dog would eat them, thereby having an endless supply of dog food. Then I relished in the though of roasting them alive...

So sorry all you veggies and sensitive types!