How do you slug hunt?

[Lumpy]

Verinda.........erm..............just no!

However, thank you for the idea as we have just been out with my cooking tong thingies and it has worked a treat even on the black slugs that stick like half chewed gummy bears.

New tongs me thinks!

[muddled]

I remember the clip where Hugh Furry-Wotsit cooked and ate that recipe....well, tried to eat it and gave up. Even he said it was horrible

[Lumpy]

Oh and vinegar did not work for the black itie sticky ones......................any more ideas so I don't have my fingers stuck together for days?

[sparrow100]

I pick 'em up and lob - either into the cemetery or the pond at the bottom of the field. But if steel enters my heart I also cut them in half with secateurs.

I don't have any probs picking them up with my bare fingers now, which is progress thanks to allotmenteering!

[FlowerpotGirl]

Do the beer traps work? I've seen pictures of 4 litre milk containers and a little opening cut out for them to slide in. I really don't like killing anything and try to live with nature, but the slugs on my plot can scale prickly raspberry canes to eat the fruits! I've gone from being very peaceful and hippy-ish to swearing like a docker at an annoying fly and not flinching when I've accidently crunched a snail. I have two frogs on my plot but they aren't a match for the slug population round here.

[Lumpy]

Beer traps do work (if you have a go with them leave about an inch of the trap above the surface to stop beetles etc going in) but I think with the slugs and snails it always comes down to a belt and braces approach.

For the first time this year I have used nematodes along with the normal beer traps, copper tape, slug barrier granules, the frog and the hog family from our neighbours and we are still swamped with them.

[FlowerpotGirl]

I just read that in the average sized plot you can have as many as 90,000 of them!! They love mine at the moment because the tall grass has kept it damp for them. As I'm slowly cutting it down I'm finding hundreds of them and zillions of snails. (probably more snails than slugs). I don't mind losing a little of my produce to nature but they can eat it quicker than I can grow it.

Thanks for the tip about leaving a bit of beetles don't get in. I'll do that

[Lumpy]

We only have a tiny garden to grow in and after last nights 3 patrols we had 11 snails and 41 slugs.

[muddled]

Hi flowerpot girl, I use the milk carton ones and average 20 to 40 slugs per trap per night.

I take the cartons (lid on) to the plot and sink them a few inches into the soil. Then I cut three sides of a square in each side (you don't cut the bottom edge of the square) an inch or more above soil level.
Put some cheap lager in and replace the lid, then push the cut-outs inwards to make little diving boards.

Place the traps at regular intervals of about one stride for your most vulnerable plants.

[veggiechicken]

I don't slug/snail hunt! Am I mad?
If I find any whilst gardening I give them to the chooks (not crooks like Roitelet).
That's my limit!

[JanieB]

The last 2 mornings I've opened the back door to let the dogs out and found slugs and snails sitting on the doorstep looking for all the world as if they were waiting to be let in for a cuppa.

To add insult to injury my lovely recently painted outside kitchen wall is covered in their poo. ��

[muddled]

I don't slug/snail hunt! Am I mad?
If I find any whilst gardening I give them to the chooks (not crooks like Roitelet).
That's my limit!

My hens turn their noses up at them!

I do think that some areas struggle more than others when it comes to slugs and perhaps allotments where all but the paths are crammed with five star slug food probably struggle the most.

In my garden they eat a bit of this and a bit of that...some flowers, some weeds and some fruit and veg... and I can mostly live with that.
On my allotment they will decimate a row of something overnight.
I swear they gang up and mount an assault!
The damage is far, far worse and the slugs far more active, often seen during the day and HUGE!

On the allotment its all out war!

[Lumpy]

Dum dum de dum dum de dum de dum de dum.................

Dwarf broad beans have left the building. The slimies seem to have eaten all of what could have been pods.

I really hope they become pod bound. Off now for no 1 check of the night.

[cilla]

Just off with my head torch(well hubby's), gardening gloves, plastic cups and a plant label. I catch about 5 to 10 a night, putting them in the cup and go to the farmer's hedge at the front of the house and throw them there where they can eat the hedge rows.
I cannot believe they climb on gravel/stones and then climb up the 3rd shelf of my cold frame where my runner beans are acclimatising. They even ate my marigold before they went out. Very cheeky slimy critters! Oh well, torch to head.

[cilla]

Well my hunt has been. Not many tonight, maybe because earlier I found some.