Kitchen Garden Forum

Oldherbaceous?

Dear Alan, i hope you're not suggesting i look like that gentleman.

oldherbaceous wrote:Dear Alan, i hope you're not suggesting i look like that gentleman.

The poor old Mekon did have a little trouble finding a cap to fit

I must admit, i did scrape the paint at head height on the doorframe for a couple of hours.

I keep slugs away from planys in tubs by smearing vaseline around the tub. I prefer to smear low down so that when I pick up the tub to move it I don't end up with greasy fingers. It just needs to be a full circle about a couple of centimetres wide.

I also use copper tape around tubs - both seem to work.

Just to add we also have moats round the pots containing slug delicacies such as hostas. We set the pots in water saucers - you can stand the pot on something to keep it slightly above the water level if you are worried about overwatering. Fill the saucer with water and keep it topped up - only slugs that can swim can get at the plants. We used this method to protect seedlings too standing seed trays on bricks inside the water container.

We also have to be careful not to let the leaves of the mature plants touch anything that the slugs can crawl up such as nearby plants or walls to avoid any slugs from abseiling across.

I'm worrying about the organic slug pellets. Yesterday I was planting up a new herbaceous border, some of the plants already there were nibbled a bit and there were some sensitive ones in the new batch so I deployed a few pellets. This morning they have all disappeared. I am wondering what is taking them and are they doing them any harm.

Afternoon Geoff, that's exactly what is happening at the garden where i am working today!

And the Delphinium shoots are still getting grazed.

So I emailed the suppliers and received a prompt reply:

Hi Geoff,

The slugs will have eaten them - all I can say is that you must have a large amount of slugs. They do eat them and go away and die. Any other animal should not eat them. Maybe you need to put more down next time and monitor it.

Regards

Christine Burnett
HORTICULTURAL ADVISER
e-mail: christine.burnett@william-sinclair.co.uk

William Sinclair Horticulture LTD

So I responded:

Thanks for the prompt reply.

You jest!

That sounds a very commercial answer but I shall put some more down and let you know.

Hi Geoff,
I must say that I use the new organic slug pellets but I have not had them taken completely by anything. I always place my pellets rather than scatter them so their disappearance would be very noticeable. I always wear Latex Gloves when carrying out this operation.
By placing them strategically down the rows of Carrots and Parsnips about every 3" down the rows seems to work very well and is also very economical.
I would suggest to you that "You jest" was a little too mild because I think that you should have blasted her ear off. To say her reply was flippant is an understatement.
JB.

My concern was the total disappearance in the open garden whereas the ones I used in the Carrot Cage are still there after a week, under cover they usually just eventually go mouldy. Ever the experimenter, I have surrounded a Gypsophila and a Lychnis where they originally disappeared with a fresh lot and the Lychnis I have also covered with a chicken wire cage. Photographs taken of course so I'll report back here and to the suppliers.

We seem to be plagued with those horrid big brown/orange slugs and when I find them I put them on our bird table. As the base is usually covered with granules of fine grain, they quickly find they can't move very far and the blackbirds especially welcome them. For some reason the thrushes rarely seem to like to go onto to our bird table, so I put them round the base of the table and just hope the thrushes find them before they manage to make an escape.

I occasionally put vegetable peelings around my lettuce seedlings. It sounds an odd measure but the slugs often make a bee-line for these scraps, rather than eating the seedlings.

I had a real problem a few years ago with slugs in a border in my garden. I did the torch and rubber gloves thing for about a week - took out 20 or 30 each night the first week - very few the next week. The amazing thing was it seemed to last for quite a few months. I only had to do that twice during the summer and even in the following years the problem was never so bad again.

Before going away in early April I planted out some brassica seedlings and put a few organic pellets nearby to protect the seedlings. I was most perturbed to find a robin leaping down from the shrubs to carry off the pellets! I quickly dashed to get some environmesh to lay over everything to stop him, but I am sure that he had at least 2 or 3 before I could stop him. I don't know what effect the pellets would have because the tub just says that used appropriately (which they were) they are no danger.

Annoyingly the seedlings in that area seemed to disappear that night...