Something's been eating our cabbage plants in the bath in the new polytunnel. They are slugs and snails to be precise. We decided to take a drastic plan of action and travel to Bantry to get some kind of deterrent. We found a new product called: 'Sluggo'. That's the container perched on the edge of the bath. It contains ferric phosphate granules. You just sprinkle them round your plants and the snails and slugs eat them and become constipated and die. They then disappear underground without leaving any slime or dead bodies. The pellets are said to be natural and harmless to birds and pets.
I reckon the varmints came in the soil and manure that I put in the bath when I was filling it and then I topped it up with some bought compost. Can't see any more chewed leaves any where else so it must of been in the soil.
Hats off to the German company Neudorff if it works. Have any readers ever used 'Sluggo'? What methods do you use to kill slugs and snails?
I try to be organic in the vegetable garden and use chemicals (fertilizer, spray for rushes) around the smallholding. Are you organic or chemical? Or are you like me and be organic where it comes to vegetable production and chemical around the farm to dose cattle, kill rushes and buy nitrogen to make the grass grow?
PS.
Thanks for all those people who read my blog yesterday about the Wild Atlantic Way. I had over 200 hits and I thank you all for reading my blog. I realize that people read my blog even if they don't comment.
Slugs are something I've never managed to win against, however many you kill there seems to be an endless supply from somewhere to replace them.
ReplyDeleteI've never favoured slug pellets, or any sort of poison, my attitude is that once you put it down it's impossible to know what creatures are going to take it. So this Sluggo might be acceptable, presumably it doesn't affect other things.
Most success I had was with "slug pubs" made of yogurt pots buried level with the ground and covered with a piece of slate set on a few pebbles to let the little horrors in and keep the rain out. Put some beer slops in there, a good use for failed homebrew maybe, and empty all the drowned bodies out next day. First time I heard this I thought I was getting a wind-up, but it worked beautifully. Be interesting to try a couple in the bath and see how effective they are.
Just bought a grow-bag to fill my patio decking planters up, they get half full of leaves then topped with a few inches of compost, a few broad beans and peas to put in, spring onions and radish.
Getting a bit warmer here, still a cool breeze, but a bit of sun and brighter skies.
Raggy cat spending more time outside, sits on the decking admiring its little empire.
Thanks for that Cumbrian. I have often placed jam jars (slug pubs) in the ground full of beer or pop with a stick across to stop any helpful garden beetles dropping in and drowning. I have even been known to look for slugs and snails with a torch at night. Looking under planks and stones and the leaves of vegetables.
ReplyDeleteYou can get copper barrier tapes which you place around your veg plant pots and the copper releases an electric charge to the snails or slugs. The Sluggo pellets claim to be harmless to pets and birds.
We made a windbreak and timber door for ventilation and we fasten it with some string to stop any cabbage whites, mice or snails (they came through the soil) entering the polytunnel.
I have quite a few failed bottles of home brew to place in slug pubs if the slug pellets don't work.
Great to read your growing some veg Cumbrian.
Cattle strip grazing the Kale today. Will post pictures tomorrow or Saturday. Gone very cold and more rain to come before Dawn.
Thanks!