Slug Barrier

[Abecedarian]

Hi all,
This is my first season of trying to do proper veg growing, and returning home after a week at work was thoroughly disappointing.

After reading through the tales of woe thread it seems I'm not alone.
The slugs have had my salad leaves, peas and beans. I also suspect that they've had the marigolds I put in some of the beds because i thought they may help ward off some of the beasties.

All of my crops are in raised beds made from scaffold boards and boat deck boards. Since it seems that slugs appear to shy away from abrasive surfaces I was wondering if fixing strips of emery cloth around the perimeters would help? 50m for about £15 on eBay.

Apart from this my broccoli has developed no heads, the onions have bolted, the leeks did nowt and the garlic has a lot of rust.

I actually did better last year when I left the garden alone more!


Has anyone tried the emery cloth idea?
Any thoughts?

Thanks.

[Baldy]

Night Nurse. Glue. Meths. Vodka. Nicotine. Strepsils. Methadone. (For the gardener...)

That's just a random list. Not much help I know...
http://www.slugoff.co.uk/slug-barriers/abrasive

They are devastating my crops this year... doing the same to many others... c'est la vie

[muddled]

Hello and welcome to vine!

Your emery cloth idea might help a bit....it won't solve the problem entirely though.

Partly, this is because there are already many slugs in the soil and they won't be affected at all by a barrier round the outside of the beds.
Also, that slime thing they've got going on? It protects their sensitive bellys against most surfaces (its how they cross concrete pavements).

If you have a read of the various threads about slugs you'll see lots of different defences generally work better than just one.
I like to use
1)barrier (pop bottle tubes over individual plants smeared with vaseline or copperslip)
2) Biological control (nematodes)
3) regular slug hunts at dusk and after rain (like a madwoman wearing a headtorch carrying chopsticks and a bucket )
4) bran and porrige oats sprinkled liberally (they eat it and dehydrate)
5)Environmental (habitats to encourage predators)

And d'you know what?
After a mild winter and a wet spring, I'm still losing the battle against the slugs

Next year will be better though....I'm sure of it

[Muddy_Boots]

I've found a flame thrower works, and cooks your veggies at the same time.

[Cadalot]

I use Pop Bottle Slug Traps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhuuHj84xNg this year I'm having to increase the numbers and make the distance between smaller.

[Ryez]

it might work if you surround your plants stems with it, and essentially "mulch" the bed with it. My front garden bed was getting annihilated by slugs. I recently dag it up , and then planted many new small plants and mulched around them with a few inches of bark wood. Then threw slug pellets around at the edges of the bed and on the lawn and to my surprise there's less slugs. Some do make it through the pellets and the bark but they don't cause any significant damage at all.

[Abecedarian]

Thanks for all the replies.
I guess I'll just move what I can in to the green house.
Cheers.

[Jungle Jane]

I lined my raised bed with copper tape about 4 years ago,the good stuff sticks for years but could be expensive on numerous beds. Sand is a good barrier for plants & beer traps near the borders of your plot. I use french marigolds as a trap crop,it stops them feasting on your veg but pick them off at night so there's some plant left. If you put a plastic pot or something near the damage,you'll probably find the slugs hiding under there the next day. It's not too late to put some more peas & brocolli in!

[Kirk]

My raised bed is block of one sort of another. And contrary to everything said I decided after the first 2 layers and the general slug+snail attack that I would make the concrete mix up at about 3:1 (sand:cement) and I added salt to the mix.

The layer I did first did not really stick but I found that was owing to the blocks - the normal paver's. They have very little "structure" for the cement to bind to. So one angle grinder and a stone cutting disk and every paver got 3 groves cut into it. Then they stuck after that.

The salt is not high content but 2 layers of it are enough to deter most of the slug and snail population. I expect it is dissolving out but it is then coating the lower brickwork.

Yes, somewhat mad, but it does seem to work.

[SaraJH]

Obviously I am about to totally curse things with what I'm about to say but....

We have raised beds with very deep 10mm gravel between them and don't 'appear' to have a slug problem. I've done it now!

Some things have been slightly nibbled but I suspect caterpillars rather than slugs due to small nibbles.

[Ovce domácí]

Had some success with cheap beer in old jars that we have dug in so its level with the surface around danger points like where the squash is. A few slugs still breakthrough though so the best solution has been to wrap copper tape around a length of old hose and loop it together so it forms a hula hoop like those things from school, to have a circular barrier around a young squash plant. This has kept slugs away 100% for me but the copper tape is expensive so I have to use it where its needed most.

Warning about the beer traps though, a foul stench of death comes from the slugs marinading in beer in high summer.

[Ovce domácí]

Only saw one slug here this year too. Its been wet. Very weird.

[the big lebowski]

beer traps have been the best for me ,i think i pulled a hamstring throwing them in the air and volleying them over the fence

[Dalrimple]

staple copper wire to the top edge of your beds ,allso beer traps (not to much beer mind and it's best to taste it first ,purely for reseach to see which may suit the slugs taste ) set at soil level in the beds.
Dal

[mothhawk]

After my courgette plantlets were munched down to a single stalk Istripped all the big leaves off the borage plants and laid them around the courgette stumps as a hairy prickly barrier and so far it seems to be working, as 3 courgettes have regrown a leaf each