Best way to get rid of snails and slugs on vegetables?

Mr.Cold

I have many vegetables growing in pots in my garden and snails/slugs are proving to be a problem so my question is what is the best way to get rid of them?

invicta

Beer traps! They love the stuff.
Pour some beer into a shallow container and bury it to top of container at ground level,that'll do it!
They go in and don't come out

vistafinder

If you can check under the pots every morning they might be hiding under them.

Egg shells crushed up fine and then spread on soil but if the plants are touching the pots that might not be as good but still worth a try.

Its worth going out when its nearly dark and picking them off by hand or with a torch if you wait until dark.

Lay a plank on the ground turn it over in the mornings and remove them.

+ what invicta said

mr chips

Egg shells work best if you've baked them for 10 minutes or so before crushing them. Makes them a lot sharper when you break them up, so the slugs/snails really don't want to cross them. You need to make sure they form a complete barrier around your plants and as vistafinder said, you also need to make sure that there aren't any drooping leaves etc that they can use as a "ladder" to get over your defences.

If you use copper tape around your pots, make sure to wipe it clean every so often or it won't build up the static charge that deters them.

Beer traps work as they love beer and once in, they won't leave till they've drowned. But you have to use a darker sort, i.e. ale/stout. Lager is no good. Slugs will go for the beer before going for your veg so long as you have the beer trap at the periphery of where you're growing stuff - no point having a beer trap in the middle of a veg patch as it means they'll have a good munch on their way to the pub ...
Also, leave a small branch or something in there so that beneficial critters like beetles (which eat other pests) will be able to climb out if they fall in.

iainBB

Spread coffee grounds around each plant and under pots . slugs avoid it as much as possible.

Lay a piece of we cardboard out and each morning check under it and kill the slugs that hide there.

Field east

iainBB wrote: »

Spread coffee grounds around each plant and under pots . slugs avoid it as much as possible.

Lay a piece of we cardboard out and each morning check under it and kill the slugs that hide there.

I have tried copper , ash, egg shells, cover re timber and cardboard and I hav found beer the best. Did not realise that the darker beer works best. That probably. explains why my beer did not work so well last year. The method you use depends on the availability of supply of eggshells especially if you have a big area.
A TIP -- cut two 1 inch by 1 inch windows on opposite sides of your typical water bottle and at about 3 inches from the bottom. Only make the cut on three sides so as to leave a 'roof' over each window to help keep out the rain. Bury the bottle up to just below the bottom edge of the windows. Make sure that no clay gets in as it may cause the beer to go off more quickly. Put about 1inch beer into bottle and screw on cap to keep out rain. You might have to 'change' the contents as it may have dried up, due to a lot of 'slugging' of beer, hot weather; smell no longer potent; contains a lot of slugs and they will smell like sewage as they decompose in their beer medium.

I use circa one bottle per sq yard.

The bottle in combination with the board cover IMO is the Best and most practical .
Looking forward to you posting in the autumn!!!

tampopo

Coffee, no good. Egg shells, no good. Ash, not much better.

Beer works a treat.

Field East's idea is a good one. Or a large yoghurt can in the ground. Anything at all. Tupperware tub. Anything. They loves the beer. throw the corpses out for the birds and repeat.

iainBB

tampopo wrote: »

Coffee, no good. Egg shells, no good. Ash,. . .

Coffee grounds acts like a deterrent does not kill them but they prefer to avoid it

Not scientific but here is a good video of it

https://youtu.be/fw0whAdhOG0



Here is a good article on the board tech that works great

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/dykes135.html

arthur daly

Field east wrote: »

I have tried copper , ash, egg shells, cover re timber and cardboard and I hav found beer the best. Did not realise that the darker beer works best. That probably. explains why my beer did not work so well last year. The method you use depends on the availability of supply of eggshells especially if you have a big area.
A TIP -- cut two 1 inch by 1 inch windows on opposite sides of your typical water bottle and at about 3 inches from the bottom. Only make the cut on three sides so as to leave a 'roof' over each window to help keep out the rain. Bury the bottle up to just below the bottom edge of the windows. Make sure that no clay gets in as it may cause the beer to go off more quickly. Put about 1inch beer into bottle and screw on cap to keep out rain. You might have to 'change' the contents as it may have dried up, due to a lot of 'slugging' of beer, hot weather; smell no longer potent; contains a lot of slugs and they will smell like sewage as they decompose in their beer medium.

I use circa one bottle per sq yard.

The bottle in combination with the board cover IMO is the Best and most practical .
Looking forward to you posting in the autumn!!!

A friend of mine swears by beer for the slugs although it can make them rowdy

arthur daly

Field east wrote: »

I have tried copper , ash, egg shells, cover re timber and cardboard and I hav found beer the best. Did not realise that the darker beer works best. That probably. explains why my beer did not work so well last year. The method you use depends on the availability of supply of eggshells especially if you have a big area.
A TIP -- cut two 1 inch by 1 inch windows on opposite sides of your typical water bottle and at about 3 inches from the bottom. Only make the cut on three sides so as to leave a 'roof' over each window to help keep out the rain. Bury the bottle up to just below the bottom edge of the windows. Make sure that no clay gets in as it may cause the beer to go off more quickly. Put about 1inch beer into bottle and screw on cap to keep out rain. You might have to 'change' the contents as it may have dried up, due to a lot of 'slugging' of beer, hot weather; smell no longer potent; contains a lot of slugs and they will smell like sewage as they decompose in their beer medium.

I use circa one bottle per sq yard.

The bottle in combination with the board cover IMO is the Best and most practical .
Looking forward to you posting in the autumn!!!

A friend of mine swears by beer for the slugs although it can make them rowdy

tampopo

iainBB wrote: »

Coffee grounds acts like a deterrent does not kill them but they prefer to avoid it

Not scientific but here is a good video of it

https://youtu.be/fw0whAdhOG0

I got coffee grounds from the local coffee shop and applied copious amounts. Didn't matter a damn.

I'll try that video later...

Living Off The Splash

I have 9 raised beds growing a selection of veggies. We go on the slug hunt every day but the blighters still seem to scoff the new seedlings just as they start to grow. They hide in corners and under things. So as a previous poster said, place a piece of wood or cardboard or something similar that they can hide under then kill them the next day. At the end of the day I just buy a tube of slug pellets from Dealz at €1.49 or buy two get one free and use these.
If you are growing cabbages you will have to protect them from the Butterfly White. We cover all our cabbages every year but these things are pretty determined to find a way past the covering.
The weather has been so bad this year that my plants are slow to grow. Lots of salad leaves to see us through the summer though.