What's eating my plants

feedthegoat

Is this slug damage, cannot see any slugs, have layer of bark mulch down but still an issue.

Jim_Hodge

Yes, slugs, You'll not really see them in daylight. Bark mulch is far from a detergent to slugs.

Yep slugs. I have big plans for my vegetable garden including a beer filled moat. They dont like beer.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118894598#Comment_118894598

Not quite. They adore the smell of fermenting yeast. Apparently it approximates their sexual pheromones. So, you need a deep enough moat so they'll drown. You can accomplish the same with a mix of sugar/yeast/flour and water and it's much cheaper, especially as you'll be grappling with them for awhile, there's literally thousands around per acre.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118894633#Comment_118894633

Sorry, yes, you are right they love the smell, but they can't swim.

My sister is a brewer so when they have a dodgy run I have a decent supply of beer to put in it. Obviously the rain will dilute it quite often, so I'll have to think about a way to refill it.

I have heard, or read, copper wire on the ground works too. I will do experiments with these and others.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118894671#Comment_118894671

Ehh. Have seen people experiment with wrapping copper wire around pots to prevent slugs from crawling in. Have heard of mixed results. Good for you for the access to free beer. The 'bait' lasts about a week in my experience.

This year, I'm going to try to set out 'slug swimming pools' outside the vegetable beds, to see if they can be attracted away from the veg. Seems like getting them before they visit the beds would work better than trapping them once they're among the vegetables. As always, I'm sure this will work and there'll still be slugs around to be a problem.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118894793#Comment_118894793

Thats an interesting idea.

I am taking over managing and maintenance of this garden from my father, and I have many ideas for automating things, making some things easier. I also want to redesign the layout to make it wheelchair friendly. I'm open to all manner of new ideas.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118894853#Comment_118894853

When I had a full time job back in the day, the vegetables were irrigated with drip irrigators fed by water that was on a timer. Eventually I found that the black, ex-auto tyre soaker hose, although more generous with the water was better, because there was always 1 more seedling than there was a dripper. I lived in a part of the world where drought wasn't ever an issue though (kind of like here, despite that bogus drought of a couple years ago with asinine water restrictions.) Also, if you want someone to tool around in a wheelchair, you'll need it to be pretty flat. I imagine some googling will help you with the design for that, as well as what to make the garden paths from (probably stone of some sort rather than wood chips)

looksee

None of the slug defending solutions take account of the slugs already living in the raised beds, you are just creating a gated community for them. A yeasty swimming pool set into the bed might be a good addition.

ECO_Mental

don't know how big your garden is but go out onto your garden/lawn just after is goes dark (preferably if its a bit damp) with a torch and if you catch them at the right time you can just pick them up, bags of them. Do this for a couple of nights and it will seriously reduce your slug problem.

I tried all that copper wire and beer stuff and while you will catch a few it will nothing like going out yourself and just plucking them up when they are coming out of the hidey holes 😁

All depends on the size of your garden though mine at the time was a small semi-d that was contained but the couple of nights I did that never had a slug problem after

SnowyMuckish

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118894793#Comment_118894793

I used copper tape around a group of potted on seedlings last year. I literally taped a rectangle onto the concrete around them rather than doing individual pots. They were all left alone, Would have been too expensive on a large scale so it would interesting to see how your copper wire would fair out!

feedthegoat

Thanks for that, pity I am learning after they ate the leaves.