Peed off...

[Chocolate8me]

So my first year growing my own just happens to coincide with a poor summer... I accepted that & was more than happy with my mange tout, raspberries, peppers & cucumber until now.

Slugs have eaten my courgettes, tomatoes, kale & flowers (including lillies). Caterpillars have eaten my sprouts & cabbage. Vine Weevil was spotted on my raspberry plant earlier and I now have an infestation of greenfly in my greenhouse on my chilli pepper leaves (which I've been squishing with my gloved fingers).

I really didn't want to resort to using chemical treatments but I had to buy some spray earlier although I think it's too late

Is there any other option? I don't understand how organic gardeners can defeat the common pests without using chemicals.

[Dusty Rhodes]

Maybe there is something here that will help you to fight back without using chemicals:

Slug Control Collar | Organic Slug Control by TheGardenCloche.com

Oh Slugs, How I Hate You. | Grow & Resist

The Latest “Surefire” Methods of Controlling Slugs

I hope other Grapes will read these links and respond to your cry for help.

[Two_Sheds]

Slugs have eaten my...

yes, they've been awful this year. I caught over 1000 one night in just my home garden. I start nearly all my veg in pots then transplant to the lotty, otherwise the slugs eat everything as it germinates.

Caterpillars have eaten my sprouts & cabbage.

you must use netting to keep the butterflies off

Vine Weevil was spotted on my raspberry plant

they're only a problem for container plants really. The adults are nocturnal: if you go outside at night with a torch, you can often see them climbing up walls. Pick them off and stamp on them

infestation of greenfly in my greenhouse

yes, this is a perennial problem. You have to spot infestations early and deal with them, don't leave it. Squish, squish, squish.

Lacewings, hoverflies and ladybirds are all natural predators, but they need something to eat ... if you use sprays and kill all the aphids all the time, there won't be any predatory insects at all. I lost the battle with greenfly on my house chillies, so I stuck them on the patio and then in the greenhouse, and the problem disappeared.

You might have to hold your nerve for a couple of years while the predator population expands, eg I don't spray the greenfly on my roses at all, I just squish the first ones off as they appear. Later in the summer I'm too busy to do that, but by then the insects and the sparrows are doing the job for me.

Blackfly are a huge problem on my broad beans in May, and again on my philadelphus in August: I let the stems get infested, then bin (dalek) the lot, rather than hand-squishing.

I don't understand how organic gardeners can defeat the common pests without using chemicals.

perseverance, patience and persistence!

[Pinfold Plotter]

Another thing you can do is create good environments for the predators. A pond for frogs and "messy corners" with a pile pf dead leaves and old branches and sticks for hedgehogs will help the slugs. Lots of flowers like calendular will attract hoverflies which will make short shrift of the greenfly. I've grown tagetes in pots next to the tomatoes in my greenhouse this year and so far no whitefly. Blackfly are a favourite meal of ladybird larvae (which are really quite frightening up close!) you can buy packets (too late now of course) of eggs that will hatch and eat the blackfly and then hopefully go on to raise families of their own I also put nuts out to encourage birds onto the plot as they are partial to leather jackets and grubs that come to the surface.

However, that said I'm afraid I have had to resort to a few pellets for the slugs this year (my pak choi is a collection of stems). I only put them sparing under a cardboard mulch around plants that are already netted in the hope that the slugs will die underground and away from birds and animals.

This year really has been awful. Everyone is struggling (apart from the slugs - they are loving it!), don't lose heart - there is always next year!

[MojoJojo]

My first year growing too - and I realised late that you really need to net broccoli if you don't want to use sprays.

[areia]

dont fear I must admit after alot of plotters getting blight on there tommies and potatoes my potatoes had it too,
my tomatoes survived only for me to discover huge hungry caterpillers eating them needless to say the trick is to just nip things in the bud before they take hold, a neighbour had tons of cabbage white, but he was unfazed and with the help of my two yr old picked them off one by one and got rid of them

I swore never to use chemicals, i did in the end after losing 20 odd french bean plants to slugs i did resort to small scattering of pellets,
touch wood green and black fly have not appeared on my plot though have had plently of white fly

this is my first yr as it is yours, you wil learn whats grows happy where and what are most common bugs etc you get to learn to work with nature, to be able to successfully grow anything in your first year is an achievment, next year will be better

[kathyd]

Netting, fierce jets of water, pinching things off and squishing them.. also just tried removing young brassicas from their pots and washing their roots to get rid of cabbage root fly before re-potting them... don't know if it'll work, and will use COLLARS next year! But I've used a billion organic slug pellets even so, and I've got caterpillars under the netting (how on earth do they do it?), and blackfly on my parsnips (also under netting).. demoralising isn't it? But I'm trying to look at the positives, appreciate the things that DID work, and be thankful that my disasters took place during a year which was bad for everyone else too and which can be blamed on the weather and not just on my ignorance! Fingers crossed for next year... will be growing dozens of extras 'just in case'!

[Chocolate8me]

Maybe there is something here that will help you to fight back without using chemicals:

Thanks for your help but I'm in the UK and the first link is American. I think I will try the beer container next to my plants (my raised bed is free from slugs as they mustn't like to climb up the rough wood).

Two Sheds, are you a keen collector of slugs? 1000 in one night is some hobby
I will definately be using netting next year on my raised bed to keep the butterflies/caterpillars at bay.
Last year we had so many ladybirds in the garden it was unreal, I've not seen one so far this summer
Thank you, as ever, for your advice

Pinfold, we have a pond that was home to about 200 frogspawn/tadpoles then frogs but they have all disappeared. I'm assuming that they will just come 'home' to mate early next year. I have to admit, the frogs are a quarter of the size of the slugs so I'm not surprised they went somewhere else to live.

MojoJojo we could always set the Power Puff Girls onto the caterpillars

[Chocolate8me]

Areia, can I borrow the 2 year old so we he can pick off the slugs & caterpillars from my plants pleasey weasey? lol. I will pay him with a few biscuits & a glass of milk I have learnt so much this year & certainly know what I will be doing differently next year (I still have so many questions that need answering though). It is fantastic when you come to harvest fruit/veg for the first time though, so amazing. Worth the effort just for the grin factor alone!

Kathyd, how the hell did you get butterflies lay eggs through your netting? Was it fine mesh? I'm going to try it next year & see how I get on. I grew a few 'extras' (not intentionally I may add, wasn't expecting so much to germinate), but the bugs got them too. You are right about the weather being blamed for a bad year though, us British know it's a topic we love so much!

[northepaul]

Another idea, re slugs etc, plant loads and loads - law of averages means you should get some crop.

Or do regular night patrols.....

coffee grinds....

Just dont give up!

[FijiBob]

I pulled a rhubarb leaf off the other day for no reason other than it was a little in the way of (one of) my Squash plant. I forgot to clear it up and popped out at night after a few shandies to find it had acquired three snails and two slugs (it had rained in the evening).

It got me thinking about sacrificially throwing some things to the slugs every so often to try and encourage them onto them rather than the other things I'm growing.

I've tried it a couple of times since (with various leaves, parsnip, courgette, rhubarb) and they only seem to go for the rhubarb...

It's either that or where my rhubarb plant is is very close to where they sleep.

Anyone else had similar experiences? Or was I just lucky?

[Leif]

I've also had numerous slug attacks, destroying all my sunflowers, chinese cabbage, lupins and delphinium and damaging other plants. I cannot see a sensible alternative to metaldehyde pellets. They work.

I was chatting with my neighbour at the weekend and he said that his father used to companion plant, decades before it became popular and it worked. He would plant a row of Marigolds with his rows of veg. I have used pyrethrin powder, which is very effective, has low toxicity, biodegrades and is natural. I think it is manufactured from Marigolds. I once grew chillis in a 'garden' full of weeds such as Mallow, and wild pea, and the plants were always surrounded by hover flies hoovering up the pests. So I would suggest that next year you plant some food plants for hover flies, ladybirds etc, including Marigolds and wild pea. I have a herb bed, and many herbs are good attractants for beneficial insects. Rosemary attracts bees and I assume hover flies. I suppose the challenge is to ensure that some plants are flowering when an attack is likely. I assume aphids are breeding machines, and appear during any warm month.

For this year I recommend pyrethrin powder, comes in a squeazy plastic bottle, and you squirt it on. It cleared an infestation of aphids from my mint plant (which I later threw away when I found the flavour was poor). And as I said, toxicity is low, and it biodegrades.

[veggiechicken]

I've tried it a couple of times since (with various leaves, parsnip, courgette, rhubarb) and they only seem to go for the rhubarb...

It's either that or where my rhubarb plant is is very close to where they sleep.

Anyone else had similar experiences? Or was I just lucky?

Hi FijiBob and welcome to the Forum. Could you add your location to your profile please - and if its Fiji we'll be very jealous!!
My rhubarb leaves were decimated by slugs and snails this year - stripped back to the ribs. Considering that they are supposed to be poisonous, it didnt seem to have any effect on those little blighters!

[Julesa70]

Decided I realy HATE slugs - they have eated all my 7 year olds carefully cared for pumkins overnight last night that she's grown from seed and cared for for months ........ she's so not impressed and very upset - we have a roof patio one floor up so they can climb grrrrrr

[chris]

Nemaslug. It just works, is natural and safe for wildlife.

Without that this year I'd have had no crops.