Most gardeners have a real hatred for slugs, we have about 44 different species in the UK and yet only a few of these actually eat our plants. The rest break down decaying matter, providing an essential cleaning and recycling service. Slugs help with composting and most are food for many other creatures too. Slugs are a really important part of the garden eco-system and beyond. And while it is upsetting and annoying when they eat our plants, we need to understand that plants form the bottom layer of the food chain and are important food for the next layer up, which in turn are food for something else. Pretty much everything is a meal for something. And the health and existence of the food chain is absolutely vital for biodiversity and the health of the planet.
You will never get rid of the slugs in your garden. When you ‘destroy’ slugs, more will move in to take their place. But there are ways to protect your plants. Here are five things to do to give your plants a better chance against slugs.
Don’t grow slug food
There are some plants that are a virtual delicacy for slugs. Things like dahlias, hostas and soft fleshy leaves, plant shoots and especially seedlings. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t grow these plants but they will need additional protection to keep them safe from slugs. Instead choose to grow tougher, woodier plants, or plants with leathery, waxy or tougher leaves. Plants that are more resistant to the ravages of slugs include foxgloves, eryngium, hardy geraniums, phlox, verbascum and astrantia.
Restore the natural balance
One of the most important things you can do to improve the health of your garden is to restore the natural balance. That’s very easy to say, but may not be so easy to do, or at least you might think that. The first thing to do is to improve the health of your soil, and the best way to do that is to start a compositing system or two.
Use the resulting material as a soil conditioner and gradually it will attract a range of soil mini-beasts that themselves form an important layer of the food chain and attract the very creatures you need to feed on the slugs. One of the underrated creatures that really do a lot to control slugs are beetles, which eat the eggs. Beetles need rotting wood and decaying leaves and lots of places to hide and scurry around.
Add a pond and allow a little wildness to exist somewhere and you start to provide nesting sites and shelter for all sorts of creatures that we need, like slow worms, frogs and toads and the endangered hedgehogs. Dump the toxins and allow the food chain to rebalance and soon you will reap the benefits of stepping back and allowing wildlife to thrive.
Toughen up your plants
Slugs love soft and sappy growth and especially seedlings. Give your seedlings, cuttings and young plants a chance to toughen up so that they have more cellulose in the cells and are less appealing to slugs. Grow your seedlings indoors or in a greenhouse in a protected environment where you can keep them protected from slugs. Harden these plants off carefully and only plant them out when they are bigger, tougher and more resistant to the ravages of the slugs.
Copper tools
Copper has been shown to deter slugs, the jury is still out why or how that works but it only slows them down, it doesn’t seem to fully protect your plants. It’s worth a try. You could choose to use copper tape or copper mesh around your pots to stop the slugs in their tracks.
Join the copper tool revolution and use copper hand tools in the garden. As you use the tools to tend to your plants tiny molecules of copper are left in the soil, it’s not a definitive solution but some users have reported less mollusc damage on newly transplanted seedlings in their gardens.
Barriers and traps
If you do a little research there are all sorts of materials that are claimed to prevent slugs reaching your plants (including copper above). Things like sharp grit and crushed egg shells, coffee grounds and wool are all hailed as slug barriers. But as soon as a plant leaf drops over the barrier the slugs have a bridge to reach your plant and many barriers need replenishing regularly. In the end you need an integrated approach that uses as many of the tools in your tool box to keep one step ahead of the slugs. Traps can be effective. Many years ago, I trialled slug traps for the Daily Telegraph. I had to bribe a teenager to count the slimy results, but one product stood out above the rest. A slug trap called Slug X which you bait with cheap beer and it doesn’t tend to trap our essential ground beetles, that can fall into homemade slug traps. That said, remember, it’s not a good idea to try and annihilate all the slugs in your garden, no matter how much you hate them. But a slug trap inside your greenhouse may be a good way to keep your maturing plants safe until they are tougher and less palatable to the slugs.
If you prefer to use pellets to protect your plants, Richard’s Slug & Snail Control is an organic solution that can be used to limit damage to susceptible plants. It’s based on naturally occuring ingredients and is safe for pets and wildlife.
