Kitchen Garden Forum

I am thinking of parting with a load of cash to try the biological slug control this growing season and before I do I wondered if anyone had any experience of it and would recommend it? Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Helen

Yes, I have tried it.

I am on clay and to be honest I did not think it was worth the money.

On lighter soils it might be better.

I now rely on physical removal, barriers, hens eating them an pellets in a controlled way.

Jerry

I bought my chickens for pest control and neither of them like slugs...can you believe it!!

I've used them in the past with pretty good results - however the success relies on quite specific conditions that may not coincide with the time you have available to apply the nematodes (one year I ended up rushing to the allotment at dawn during a thunderstorm to apply them). I thought they were worthwhile, and I suspected that some of the effect knocked onto the following year ( I suppose as a lot of the slugs were wiped out one year, fewer were available to breed the next year). But on one allotment I did find the snails merely increased in number to take up where the slugs had left off.

I take it that it doesn't kill snails only slugs?

It will deal with snails as well, though not as well.

My hens love slugs and snails, so much so they will fight over the treat.

In the summer I collect the varmits at night by torch light and give them to the hens in the morning, they love them!

Jerry

Do you want to swap chickens by any chance

No thanks, sounds like they do a good job of pest control and egg production!!!

Here is number one slug muncher, or called Dora by everyone else. Dora after Dora the Explorer, the kids character as she is a bit of an escapologist!



Jerry

Ahhh, very cute picture..is she trying to get in or out? Mine are lovely and will eat almost everything else. They are good layers too so I cant complain (but I do!!)

Helenclare wrote:is she trying to get in or out?

In, it was freezing that day! We still have to lock the cat flap as she will come in if she has a chance!



But I love them and would not be with out them!

Jerry

I've decided £10 a dose is too much for a borderline benefit. I think they did help in the greenhouse but I wasn't convinced outside on the potatoes. I'm hoping all the real frost for the first time in years will have thinned out the slimy army.

I got the impression they were only worth it for the underground slugs (that eat your potatoes for example). There are other successful barrier methods for above ground ones that are a lot cheaper than nematodes. But you would have to grow a lot of potatoes to make your £10 investment worthwhile.
I have used another biological control (for red spider mite) which worked but have since found an organic spray that's much cheaper.

I must be honest, it was the cost that really worried me and the fact that it only lasts for 6 weeks at a time. Plus on an allotment more of the blighters will move in from other peoples plots. I think I have decided to take my chances and try all the other enviromentally friendly methods of killing them. Its the tiny black ones that live underground that really bother me. the others I just drop into a jar of salty water...cant bear to squish them!!
Helen

Well we have used them on our raised beds, raised above clay, and found them to be very good. It has meant we were able to crop edible potatoes. I mean potatoes with useable flesh between the slug holes, as well as undamaged potatoes.

I think the benefit you get will depend on the crop, your soil and the weather, both the previous winter and during the growing season. We confined our use mainly to root crop areas, so our use has rotated with our normal rotation. We think we have less of a problem in those areas than we did, especially when compared to the areas that have never been treated.

We use various other methods as well for the surface slugs, so I don't think the nematodes are a cureall. But on our allotment they make the diffence between useable underground crops and none. And the price is small put against the effort of growing the crops and the heartache of digging them up to find they are useless.

So I guess the answer is, as so often in gardening, 'it depends....'

Hi Helen,

I'm going to try it in one or two of my raised beds (esp after Beccy's post).

I am attaching copper tubing to the bed edgings to prevent the surface slugs getting in.

And will install slug pubs this week before planting out. And then after they have stopped attracting slugs I intend to lay some wilted lettuce leaves under some rocks in the middle of each bed and then come to it in 5 days time and pick off all the slugs (will be using comfrey leaves in future but not planted any yet!). I will drown them and add them to my compost bin.

Hoping this tactic will mean less slugs to breed during the season. Then if I spot any damage I will do some nightly pickings.

Also preparing the soil with copper tools.

Hmmm Perhaps I'm going overboard here LOL
Lois