Sharing the planet with slugs

The slug could be seen as one of nature’s great recyclers, taking up and digesting decaying vegetable matter, but when they eat our seedlings, well that is a different matter.

‘It’s warfare’, said Jack, my octagenarian fellow allotmenter, as we discussed the various pests eating away at our treasured produce. And that’s surely how it can feel, when the wet weather comes and the army of slugs emerges, apparently to chomp its way through everything in its path.

I have a feeling that there must be a better way than just reaching for the metaldhyde pellets, which are now being used so widely that our water is becoming contaminated.  Experts are clear in any case, that there is no point trying to eradicate slugs. Soil can contain hundreds of them in every square metre. Perhaps the best way is to try to understand why they do what they do.

Most types of slugs dont attack healthy plants, but home in on decaying vegetable matter.The stronger and bigger your plants the less likely a slug attack will occur. So the key strategy is to plant them out only when they are big and strong and to protect them most urgently during their first few weeks.

Slugs have natural predators like frogs, toads, hedgehogs and song birds -so a pond would help. Some organic growers also use runner ducks which harvest slugs voraciously. In our gardens nematodes make good natural predators and and are now available online and from garden centres simply to mix with water and then water onto the soil.  Treated soil is relatively slug free for up to six weeks. Nematode treatment can be timed to coincide with planting out.

Slugs are essentially snails without shells, and because they dont have shells, they are particularly prone to drying out.  This is why they emerge after watering, or after rain, or at night. Many of the treatments for slugs depend on their need for a moist environment. For example - try providing a shelter for them at daytime like a moist piece of bark and then remove them regularly.

You can find more about slugs and the variety of interventions available in our wiki

If you have the stomach to watch they have a fascinating mating ritual which is available here

Suggested Task: Your experience of slugs

We are keen to hear of your experience of slugs and the remedies you have found effective. Tell us about it in a comment here or in the locutory.

Your comments.

I just can’t bring myself to kill slugs.  I know to many this may sound soft, in view of the damage they can do, but I can’t help feeling that the vegetables we grow and the land we grow it on is not really ‘ours’, and if they are, then the slugs can have no notion of that. As well as being seen as ‘pests’ (and if they are as a result of the destruction they cause, then aren’t we too?) they are an integral part of the whole system, being creatures in their own right as well as providing food for song birds, toads, hedgehogs etc. 
My solution for slugs is manual collection.  Get a large bottle and prick some holes in the sides.  Put in a piece of lettuce.  Get out there just before seedlings are planted and collect as many as you can.  Once you have about twenty slugs and snails, take them somewhere like a park or cemetery or even a bit of green verge near the road, and release them.  The more you do this, the more effective it is, and it also means there are no slugs on your patch to breed and lay eggs.  I grew veg properly in my garden this year for the firs time ever because of this.  Now in August I’ve hardly had any casualties to my veg at all compared to previous years.

I’m with you Jane!

Sorry to say I’m a slug-killer. I figure if I don’t want them, I should get rid of them in an honest way: I refuse to use chemicals and have bought a large knife for the purpose, which kills quickly and doesn’t pollute.
I lay boards down around my plot, which I can turn over in order to kill the slugs, and I leave them there for other wildlife to eat.
Sorry that’s a bit violent!