chafer grubs

[zebedee]

Can anyone help pls? I dug over a square plot of my allotment over the weekend, and found several gruesome looking things, that, according to a book I read later, said they were chafer grubs(?)

How do you get rid of the little b*****s, as cleanly as possible, coz I don't really like chucking chemicals about?

[TonyF]

My plots are plagued with them also.

I just chuck them out onto the garden and the birds sort them out for me - natural remedy.

[Flummery]

Our tame female blackbird follows me and my neighbour when we're digging and will trample on your boot to get at things like this. I actually saw her eat a huge slug last year. Yuk!

[srodders]

A couple of football pitches over here were so bad last year that they just had to plough the pitch, let the birds do their stuff eating the bugs, and then re-seed the pitches (pitch out of action for some time). Provado will work, but if you don't want to use chemicals then digging them up is the best.

[Two_Sheds]

you could lay some black plastic sheet on the ground...when you lift it off again the grubs will be near the surface. Saves a bit of digging.

[Snadger]

Trout love em!!!

[nick the grief]

Probably Expensive but this will do it

http://www.nemasysinfo.com/html/chaf...ller_main.html

[Paulottie]

They are May Bugs...and if they is only one thing that gives me the screaming abdabs its them. So bad I couldn't go out in garden the other night... like some war movie I could almost hear the dambusters theme. They seem to be coming up in one of my greenhouses. I've killed about fifty of them now The best schoolboy bit is watching how quick the ants clean them up.

Two sheds has a good method there for the chaffers (works for leatherjackets too) also upturned turfs work the same. Birds do love them. As nick points out the nematodes are pricey option. Don't get the black juice on you smells like concentrated sewage....They certainly hit all the branches falling out the ugly tree!

and did i say eeeeeyyyyyyyyuuurrrrkkkk!!!!!! don't want to come back as a blackbird or trout if i have to eat those whitchety grubs.

[Flummery]

Trout love em!!!

Your plot must be REALLY damp Snadger!

[bubblewrap]

Your plot must be REALLY damp Snadger!

Well at least Snadger won't have to worry about a hose pipe ban then?

[Snadger]

and did i say eeeeeyyyyyyyyuuurrrrkkkk!!!!!! don't want to come back as a blackbird or trout if i have to eat those whitchety grubs.

Thats what they remind me of!!! Those things that Ray Mears or Bushtucka Man is always chomping on and going ooh...ahhh.... yum!!!

Wonder what they taste like???

[Snadger]

Your plot must be REALLY damp Snadger!

We used to call them 'Docken grubs' when we were kids. If we were going fishing we used to dig up docks and usually find some around there roots. When put on a hook they wriggle like blazes (as you would!) and thats what used to attract the fish!

[Paulottie]

Wish my little pond at the lottie could hold a few trout!

[LaurenGrows]

What are those reddish leather looking cacoon thingies I am finding in the soil? And are they plant eating pests when they hatch.?

[TonyF]

Crocodile Dundee had the best approach - "they taste like sh*t, I'm having tinned peaches!"