“How do I get rid of slugs?” This has got to be the number one question in the world of growing your own. And we’d like to start off by saying that a) you would find it really quite difficult to get rid of slugs altogether and b) once your plants are a bit more grown up then they can actually tolerate some slug damage, so if you can protect them until they’re a bit bigger then you should still get a decent crop.
OK, so, how do you set about deterring the slimy little slugs? Well, firstly, we highly recommend our Natural Slug and Snail Deterrent which will keep them at bay. But there are hundreds of other slug preventing options out there, whether or not they are all effective remains a mystery to us as we haven’t tried them all. But of the different methods we’ve tried and tested we would probably recommend the following three:
- Without a doubt the absolute best thing you can do is get yourself a head torch and go on a little slug patrol as night falls and physically pick them off using an old spoon. Yes, it’s laborious and time consuming, but it is a sure way to keep your plants safer. What you do with the slugs that you collect is entirely up to you…we’d recommend NOT throwing them over your neighbour’s fence though! If you have chickens, they’ll love them.
- Make a few beer traps. But don’t use good beer! Our Slug Busters are perfect for this, or you can find yourself some old tin cans or plastic cups, dig them into the ground so that the rim of the cup/can is level with the soil and fill half full with beer and water. The slugs will most likely head to the “pub” rather than to your lettuces, sliming their way into the cup and passing out in the beer. You need to put quite a few of these traps in and around your veg patch for it to be effective.
- If you’re growing in pots and containers, you can buy copper tape from most garden centres. Putting this on the pots can be a good barrier to slugs as it gives them a little electric shock. You can also get copper tape to go around the base of plants. More recently we’ve been using up old pennies by placing them in a circle around the base of plants…not yet sure how well it works, but in theory it should be just as good as using copper tape.