The Usual Suspects
I don’t like to give in or be defeated by things but I think when it comes to slugs and snails, for this year anyway, I have. There was a time when I would patrol my garden as dusk fell, torch in one hand and trowel in another collecting these slimy creatures. With a bucket of salty water at the ready, they would be disposed of and I would go to bed feeling like I was at least on top of the problem. A sprinkling of organic slug pellets or water bottles, cut down to create a collar-like protection around particularly vulnerable plants, were further weapons in my armoury.
However, this incredibly wet summer has provided such perfect conditions for slugs and snails that it’s proved impossible to control them. I’ll admit my night-time forays have been few and far between, with other commitments taking up so much time. And if I’m honest the prospect of donning full waterproofs to go out and search for slugs in the pouring rain is not the most appealing way of spending my time. I’ve tried beer traps in the past but the disgusting gloop that results is difficult to get rid of. Where do you put a mixture of drowned slugs, slime and cheap lager?
Shredded hostas
Even organic slug pellets which have proved useful in the past don’t seem to be working this year. I have a plastic trough that I grow salad leaves in and I’ve had to resow it threes times now. I’ve even tried planting into it more established little lettuce plants but this didn’t even work. I came out one day to find a slug, in broad daylight no less, manoeuvring its way through the compost, avoiding the slug pellets and hoovering up the lettuce. Seriously these creatures have no shame.
A slimy trail
My hostas are taking on a shredded look, lamiums have been reduced to shreds and a salvia is now nothing more than a stump. I have plants that a slug or snail, the actual culprit is unclear, has crawled over the leaves at the base, up the stem and then eaten the much anticipated flower. Why, why, why?
It’s not like I want to completely eradicate these detritivores. I appreciate their place in the chain of organisms that breaks down plant material but what I don’t understand is, give a slug the choice between some rotting leaves and some lettuce seedlings and it will choose the latter. Maybe it’s the same as giving me the choice between service station sandwiches and a gourmet meal in a restaurant. My lettuce must just be too tasty to slither past. But surely my lamiums and salvias aren’t that much more appealing than a pile of decaying leaf litter. Maybe I just have to accept that there are some plants that I just shouldn’t grow.
Where’s the salad gone?
There was a time when I was pretty squeamish about disposing of slugs but the sense of frustration I feel when I come across plants that have been damaged when I’ve spent so much time nurturing them has led to a more ‘seek and destroy’ mentality. So much so, that scissors or squishing with a welly are now employed. I have more of a problem with snails though, partly because scissors aren’t going to work with that shell and also more because they look like a living creature rather than slugs, which just look like a blob of slime. Writing this though still makes me feel slightly guilty. I don’t like destroying life but when it is estimated that there are up to 1000 slugs per square metre in parts of Britain this summer because of the mild winter and wet summer, which could mean potentially 15 billion slugs in the whole of the country, I don’t feel quite so bad. (figures taken from the Daily Telegraph 23rd May 2012)
In some respects it is my own fault, the overpopulation of slugs is a sign to some degree that the little ecosystem that is my garden is not functioning properly. There simply aren’t enough predators to control the mollusc population. The difference between my garden and my allotment is striking. Whilst the plants up on the plot have not survived completely unscathed they have suffered relatively little damage, birds such as song thrushes and blackbirds are doing a fine job of controlling the slugs and snails. Even though I encourage birds into the garden, prowling neighbours’ cats seem to put many of them off rummaging about in the undergrowth and a back garden entirely surrounded by fences makes access for hedgehogs difficult. I did come across a frog today though sitting under some grasses by the newly installed pond. I don’t think one frog is going to solve my slimy problem though, so for now, I can only hope that at some point soon it will stop raining, the ground will dry up and the slugs will go into hiding for a while.
They never said gardening was for the faint of heart. But, after all the hard work you put into it, it’s hard to accept defeat. Makes you wonder how our forefathers grew enough to last the entire winter.
Hi Judy, I know, I’m just about to resow some seeds that have been knobbled in the cold frame. They’re going on the window sill this time until they’re a good enough size to go out.
It’s mors snails than slugs in my garden and some of them are quite big so I can’t bring myself to kill them. I’m gathering them up and putting them in my brown bin. There is so many of them in there I’m waiting on the bin to make it’s own way out to the bin truck.
Hi Cookie Jar, Mmmm I have more problems with killing snails too but to be honest I can’t walk to the gate or shed without stepping on a good number accidentally, at the moment. I have been putting mine in my green waste bags in the hope they’ll love the greenery and feed on that instead, not sure it’s working though! Loving the idea that your bin will start moving of its own accord soon.
I think you’ve touched the nerve of the gardening nation with this post, Welly. I found a little one slithering through the inside leaves of a sweetheart cabbage I’d just cut for my supper – I was in the kitchen at the time and couldn’t bring myself to use a good kitchen knife to decapitate it – too gross for words! (Recycled butter tub to the rescue, until I could chuck it out.) Slugs don’t have a homing instinct so I’ve fully deployed a quick trip on Slug Air to the railway tracks next to the veg garden. Snails, however, I just fling out onto the paving slabs and hope the birds are watching. Am seriously considering buying nematodes for the winter veg seedlings…
Hi Caro, Nematodes are just so expensive and you have to repeat them, that I would hate to spend all that money to find they were marching in from my neighbours’ gardens. But I know what you mean, you do get to the point where you’ll try anything. Surrounded by houses here, so for neighbourly harmony it’s probably wise I don’t employ Slug Air, it’s tempting though.
Everyone has had the same problems in what has clearly been a good year for slugs! I’ve certainly never so many slugs, and big snails, on my plot as I have this year.
Your top picture made me smile, but I only hope that I never see any quite that big or we really will have to worry! xx
Mmm, can you imagine 6ft snails, it doesn’t bear thinking out about. Apparently there are slugs that reach 25-30cm in parts of America, that sounds dreadful!!
The newly installed pond will solve your slug and snail problems in the future I think. Because frogs and toads will lay their eggs in the pond. I used to have many slugs in my garden. But now there are so many frogs and toads and very few slugs and snails.
Denise, Hoping the pond will at some point help with the slugs and snails but I think the sheer amount of rain we’ve had this summer has just been perfect for them all. If we had the space I’d get a few ducks!!
It’s definitely no fun galumphing around in your wellies in the dark and wet going after these little beasties and they say it’s the little ones that do the most damage
Somebody tweeted earlier tonight that the average garden has 20,000 slugs, the average slug has 27,000 teeth (hard to believe) which adds up to 540 million slug teeth at work in your garden. What chance do we have? 
Hi Anna, The little ones are so tiny it’s almost impossible to see them in the dark anyway. I don’t suppose the mild winter helped either. Hopefully we’ll get a dry spell soon. You do wonder why we bother sometimes. I’m just off to resow some veg seeds that have been knobbled in my cold frame. They’re going on the window sill this time until they’re big enough to go out. I may have given up on the garden but I still have the allotment!!
I can relate..a few of my hosta’s look like your picture. Nature will always have its way. Thanks for the share.
Hi Graceful Gardener, Frustrating is the feeling. It has felt like much more of a battle this year against the elements.
Snails I don’t mind. They are a minor nuisance compared to the slugs. But yes, one does get desensitised after a while, and I’ve re-purposed a hoe to act as my slug-spear… The war is on!
Flaneur, snails are rampant in my front garden. Maybe you could hire yourself out as slug-spearer extraordinaire?
I don’t think anyone has the answer to this age old problem. Having so many blackbirds and thrushes, usually we don’t have much damage, but just this last week I have noticed holes everywhere. The best sound is of a thrush, tap, tapping a snail shell, but haven’t heard that because of the noise of the torrential rain! 5 inches fell on Ottery St. Mary on Saturday, we were there at a function, just feel so sorry for the poor people who were flooded out yet again, in spite of the hugely expensive flood defenses.
Pauline, You have had it bad down there in the south west. Ottery St Mary is such a lovely place. I love the Water Mill there. I feel for all those people who’ve put in so much hard work to arrange events across the country only for them to be ruined by this years weather. It’s got to stop raining at some point, hasn’t it?
I do like your rogues gallery at the top – but not the rogues within! We’re trying nematodes this year on the veg garden to try and prevent our maincrop potatoes being riddled with black tunnels as they often are, but the ornamental part of the garden certainly seems to be harbouring the most gastropods I’ve seen yet.
Hillwards, I’ve contemplated nematodes before but the expense has put me off. I think I might try them next year in the back garden to see what impact it has. If we get another mild winter we may well be over run with them.
What a terrible year we’re having with slug damage. I’ve never seen so many in my garden, and plants just aren’t surviving them at the allotment either. I found one in the greenhouse just making it’s way to the beans I’ve had to resow. I don’t hold out much hope of many things making it to harvest this year.
Hi Jo, I’m just off to resow some veg plants that were in the cold frame and have been knobbled. I was picking courgettes this time last year, still haven’t got any flowers on this year’s. (sigh)
We’ve had a terrible time of it too. We even dug a pond recently and found a friendly family of frogs to populate it in an attempt to fight fire with fire – although I suspect we’re shutting the door after the horse has bolted (if that’s not mixing too many metaphors …) *exasperated look*
Woolly Green, It’s all very disheartening. But us gardeners are made of stern stuff and we’ll keep on resowing. It just gets a tiresome after a while!
oh I am so fed up with the slugs in my garden. It’s been my first year of trying to grow veg, and the slugs have eaten most of it. We have been infested, one trowel of soil has about 10 slugs in it and then there’s the stripy monsters that come out at night. We have a very fat and happy toad living in our garden and even he can’t keep up with them. I’m going to try and knock them on the head with some nematodes.
Hi Rachel, I really feel for you if this is your first year growing veg. Don’t give up though. Hopefully you’ll get enough produce so that you want to keep doing it. And hopefully this isn’t the sort of climate change we’re going to have to get used to I may emigrate otherwise !!
I am totally with you on slugs this year. The thing that I am finding hardest is the destruction of things I have grown from seed in the greenhouse. Normally if they go out as a good size plant they are ok if a little nibbled round the edges. This year I have lost count of the ones I have lost. Organic slug pellets have made no difference. I don’t think it is just the ecosystem of the garden. My garden is normally fine and I have huge numbers of birds, frogs and all sorts of wildlife. There just seem to be so many slugs this year that all normal controls are overwhelmed!
Hi Elizabeth, The organic slug pellets have been rubbish this year. I don’t know why. I had some beautiful sweet peas plants that I planted out in April. Pristine and a really good size. They’ve been mauled. It’s just depressing but what can we do but plough on and hope for a dry spell soon.
It does make one understand why farmers resort to pesticides and herbicides even though I don’t want to use them myself. It is disheartening to lose so much. Christina
Christina, I was just saying that to my husband the other night. I don’t want to use chemicals either but I can understand when your livelihood depends on it why you’d do everything to try and maximise your crop. Farmers have potatoes rotting in the field here in the UK which will mean food prices will be much more expensive this summer and autumn. WW
I seem to recall Bill Oddie on Springwatch a couple of years ago regarding slugs saying “if it’s Black – put it back; if it’s Brown or Grey – throw it away”. The black ones apparently only eat rotten vegetation, whereas all the others will attack anything else growing. Not so sure how true this statement is though.
Hi Denise, The black ones are meant to ok and I wouldn’t mind if I had them in my garden but I haven’t seen one of them for ages. I seem to have all the others, the ones I don’t want. Oh well!!
It’s mostly snails I have a problem with and they do seem to cause damage here. I have no qualms about crushing them! Recently I got hold of a book on slugbusting written by a hosta nursery (talk about making yourselves vulnerable!). They reckon digging over the soil in early spring kills off a lot of the eggs. Applying slug pellets from Valentine’s Day onwards was also recommended. Ideas for next year…
Hi Claire, The digging the ground over is possibly useful on the allotment all my slug problems have been slight there this year. Not sure digging the garden over is so practical I’d no doubt spear and disturb all my bulbs, I’m so clumsy! The problem with the garden is that there is so much vegetation and places for them to hide. I’ll just hope for less rain next year, we surely can’t have another summer like this one!
Hi, i’ve been sent over to your blog by flighty, its a lovely blog from what i have seen so far. Slugs really are too revolting for words. I have a small plot so the stroll at night with a bucket of salty water in hand works for me. However i will resort to using nematodes next year.
Hi Joanne, Thanks you. I agree slugs are disgusting. Might consider nematodes myself next year.WW