English Chess Forum

Evening All

With the recent warm weather us gardeners will be facing this pest Slugs! After the long, cold winter, gardeners are revelling in the first signs of spring.

But our joy could be short-lived - for an army of slugs is poised to invade.

Experts say that the arrival of warmer weather is as attractive to slugs as it is to us.

Throw in a few April showers and the slimy pests will be ideally placed to munch their way through the contents of flower beds, vegetable plots and allotments up and down the country.

The darn slugs are climbing up daffodils and eating the flowers, gardeners’ baby seedlings are being munched and they are making their way into greenhouses and feasting on tender young plants


What methods do members on here use to get rid of slugs?

Peter D Williams wrote: What methods do members on here use to get rid of slugs?

Hypnotism works best for me.

Google "slugs" and "beer trap". Works for snails as well, apparently.

Research reveals that is it possible to train tortoises to hunt down slugs.

Their speeds are close depending on the relative humidity.

You might be able to persuade a tortoise to round them up rather like a sheepdog (or slugdog).

John Upham wrote:Research reveals that is it possible to train tortoises to hunt down slugs.

Their speeds are close depending on the relative humidity.

You might be able to persuade a tortoise to round them up rather like a sheepdog (or slugdog).

One of my tortoises the horsefield does eat slugs. The leopards do not and can be rather slow.

Peter D Williams wrote: The leopards do not and can be rather slow.

Do they tend to change their spots? This could help them creep up on and surprise the slugs.

I think you need to get rid of the leopards and get some hedgehogs instead.

Phil Neatherway wrote:I think you need to get rid of the leopards and get some hedgehogs instead.

No way the leopards are wroth a lot of money and are over 5 years old.

A copper wire strip can stop the slugs from eating tender plants.

Slugs also do not appear to like tomato leaves but love cucumber plants. So a good tip is to surround the plant pots/grow bags with tomato leaves which creates a sort of moat of leaves to stop the pesky slugs

Hedgehogs are also useful but have not seen any for a while.

I'm glad to hear that nobody is proposing any nasty chemicals!

Phil Neatherway wrote:I'm glad to hear that nobody is proposing any nasty chemicals!

Are you referring to Natrium Chloride?

Slugs are simply homeless snails.

Set up a small soup kitchen in the corner of your garden, they will soon
gather there and then you can scoop them up with a shovel and dump
them over the fence into your neighbours garden.

"I'm glad to hear that nobody is proposing any nasty chemicals!"

Tomato leaves contain toxic alkaloids, which you might well think are nasty chemicals!

Kevin Thurlow wrote:"I'm glad to hear that nobody is proposing any nasty chemicals!"

Tomato leaves contain toxic alkaloids, which you might well think are nasty chemicals!

What about dihydride monoxide? this can leave a nasty taste in the mouth if one imbibes to excess.

No need for nasty chemicals - salt does the trick!

"What about dihydride monoxide?"

The official systematic name is now "oxidane", but IUPAC have enough sense to say that you wouldn't normally use it.