Fed up with gardening, spent fortune on plants, now the rain has beaten them down, they are now just slug food
Question:I have what I term 'insurgent slugs and snails' who encroach from from next door.
Answers:
Times are getting hard boy, blooms are getting scarce, if things don't get much better boy, I'm gonna leave this place. Sorry, no advice we are all 'shell', got it, shocked, never been known in living memory. Grilled slugs or poached snails are a delicacy in France. Must be doing a roaring trade. The little ditty above I remember from the summer, sorry, of my youth. I've started on Xmas decorations.
Sure .. I prefer the 'depths of night when no-one is looking' technique :)
And yes, I know we said we wanted some rain for the plants but this is ridiculous!
concrete its the only answer
Never fear use the plants as compost for next years growth!!
Slugs and snails. Get a catapult for the snails and salt for the slugs.
Also now is the time to amuse yourself with an airrifle and the local foxes!
You are supposed to gather the slugs in a bucket, and take them to the local duck pond. Never tried it myself, but apparently ducks love em. I just can't imagine being the person standing there throwing slugs.
Maybe you could get a duck.
Plants might revive if and when rain stops - just cut off any bad bits, leave the rest and pray for sun. Slugs and snails can be dealt with in several ways - I tend to collect them at night but we don't have many now as we have ducks.. they will even eat the really big yellow leathery slugs .. yuk and turn them into delicious eggs.
I use Eliminator Slug and Snail Bait II. It really has helped me. I was amazed at just how many of these slimmy boogers I actually had in my flower beds. I just put alittle around the plants not on the plants and around places that the slugs could hide. It seems that they really like this stuff and just the first night I was amazed at all the slugs that died. For the slugs coming from the neighbors, the instructions suggests that you can run a thin line of this stuff around the perimeter of our yard and it will keep neighboring slugs from coming into your yard. Slugs and snails are migratory in the since that they will migrate to food. You will see alot of dead slugs in this powder bait at first then they seems to just disappear. If you get an extremely heavy rain and you do not see any more of the powder where you placed it, you should put more down. Normal rains and watering do not seem to hurt it though. You will really be impressed with this stuff. I bought mine at the local Walmart and I am sure it will help you. Good Luck and Don't give up on all those plants just yet.
~smiles~
Sorry you have had such a bad experience with gardening. I've been gardening for twenty some yrs. Some years are just like that. I don't think there's a solution. I live in mid Michigan and its been so dry here the plants need watered almost every day and the grass and trees have already begun to go dormant. If I could take some of your rain, I would gladly do it. I've also had summers when my plants were literally floating and I had to wear waders to go into my garden. So you see, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. I love gardening and although I've had many wins and many loses, it's all worth it and I've learned something every time. I hope you don't give up. Next year will be better. (I hope!) Good luck! Maybe this website will help inspire you!
Try growing poisonous plants like fox gloves, the slugs won't eat them, and if it does't stop raining, you can eat them yourself
Im sorry the rain has done a number on your gardens. We also have problems with those nasty slugs. One year, they destroyed everything in the garden, the place was over run by them. I am not a person to use chemicals, in my garden or my home, so I went for the "natural remedy" one evening I went out there with a can of salt and salted them all. But... It didnt really kill them, they just lost their outer coating and slithered away naked. (pretty gross) The salt killed some plants.
Then I tried dishes of beer. Slugs will drown themselves in the beer, but then you have these lil cups of dead slugs. again, pretty gross.
I also tried chopped up eggshells, with the theory being that they won't cross over the shells because they are sharp. ha ha. whatever. The slugs feasted on my Dahlias. :-{
Then, I found a wonderful product called Escar-go from Gardens Alive. ( www.gardensalive.com ) I havnt had a problem since. It says its made from iron phosphate and a bait that lures them to eat the stuff. Then, they crawl away and die.
My friend told me that slugs do not like Lyme (the powdered stuff, not the fruit ;-) ) if you border your garden with a line of the stuff the slugs will not cross. I have not tried this...
Good luck, don't give up on your gardens. :-)
i have the same problem but i found a solution get i.5 ltr lemonade bottles cut them from the bottom about 4 inches up so you have a cup place this in the ground so that the top of bottle is level with the ground and pour in a bottle of beer next morning it will be full of dead slugs and snails. it works a treat for me
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