How are you finding the slugs this year? Quite frankly I’m fed up with them already and we’re only half way through. Despite various attempts at protecting seedlings I’ve lost all bar one of my own kale plants as well as chard and beetroot seedlings and have had to re-sow them. I can completely understand why people get so exasperated with these destructive and hungry little creatures!
I don’t mind slugs and snails too much in my flower beds as they don’t seem to do as much damage there, but in the veg patch it’s a different matter.
Mr slug didn’t like the gel at all!
We’ve been suffering the same problems with slugs and snails in the community gardens too. In Goresbridge the beer traps have worked very well in the polytunnel and are full every time we check them. Today in Callan community garden we’re trying a different product that I haven’t spotted before – Slug Defence Gel that one of the gardeners Siobhan picked up in the local Woodies store.
You can see from the photos, it’s exactly what it says it is on the bottle – a liquid gel. We’ve added a ring of it around the brassica plants that we planted out in the garden today, as well as squirted a ring around the entire bed in an effort to dissuade the slimy creatures.
A ring of slug deterrent gel circles a Brassica
Immediate signs look good – we tried smearing some gel on a trowel and seeing if a slug would crawl over it – it curled up into a ball and wouldn’t budge (see above)! From what we can see it wont kill the slugs – they just don’t seem to like it.
I’ll keep you posted on how effective the gel is in a comment at the end of the blog once we’ve given it a chance to work (or not) so check back in a couple of weeks if you’re interested.
With the wet weather due again over the next couple of weeks we may see the slugs return. Here’s a post I wrote last year on fifteen organic methods of slug control – we’re working our way through them once again…
Dee Sewell – a horticulturalist and certified trainer who started Greenside Up in 2009 and teaches people how to grow vegetables. Dee specialises in working with community gardens but also offers workshops, allotment visits, consultations, horticultural therapy, afterschools clubs as well as local talks – she tailors her services to meet clients needs. In 2012 Dee launched a Seed Gift Collection containing varieties of vegetable and insect friendly flowers with the aim of getting more people growing. Dee’s blog was a finalist in the 2012 Ireland Blog Awards in the Eco/Green and Lifestyle Categories.
Source: Greenside Up – Slugs & Snails – Slug Defence Gel – Dee Sewell
