How to Stop Slugs Eating Your Plants (100_ Organic)

Did you know that the average garden contains upwards of 15,000 slugs? No wonder our plants get nibbled or even destroyed. Hi I'm Ben and today I want to help you bring your slug woes under control as naturally as possible. Spoiler alert, that means there's no room for slug pellets. To get one step ahead we'll need to think like a slug. I know what you're thinking, but it's true slugs aren't all bad. We've all had that sinking feeling of going out into the garden to find our seedlings mown to the ground or our prized plants riddled with holes, those telltale trails of slime giving away the culprits. But while slugs do test the patience of us gardeners, they actually offer some benefits too. For example, the slugs found in your compost heap actually help with the whole decomposition process, speeding things along. Many slugs aren't even that bothered by your vegetables, they're more interested in algae, and then there's the fact that they help to fuel the natural ecosystem. Think of all the animals that eat slugs. There's types of beetles, there's birds of course, and amphibians like frogs and toads. I kind of think of slugs a bit like weeds. They're not intrinsically wrong, there's just they might be in the wrong place, and in our case we just don't want them around our prized plants or our vegetables. So we shouldn't try to eradicate slugs entirely, good luck with that anyway, but rather just bring populations down to a more acceptable level, especially around things like leafy greens and vulnerable plants like recently planted seedlings. Gardeners and slugs can live together in relative harmony, so let's find out how. The first step to a more manageable slug population is to remove hiding places from within and around your vegetable garden. Now that includes lawns, so keep the grass nice and trim at least around your veg beds. You can let the grass grow a bit longer elsewhere in the garden because it's good for wildlife, but around your veg beds just make sure it's nice and trim. You see, the thing with lawn grass is it offers plenty of cool moist hiding places, which is obviously something our slugs absolutely love. The next step is to remove any debris that's lying around, upturned pots, old sacks, or in my case planks of wood that I've got lying around from pinning down road covers to protect these recently planted plants here. And in fact if I look underneath, yeah, it's provided the perfectly sheltered opportunity for these slimy slimesters to hide. Look at that, slugs on them just as well I'm removing them. And then work within beds to remove any dead, dying, yellowed leaves, and of course any weeds as well. By removing all of this excess vegetation to the compost heap, you're keeping things more open, improving airflow, and helping the soil surface to dry out so it's not as favorable to those slugs and snails. And all of this advice, by the way, does apply to snails too. Having all of these collected slugs in my hand actually reminds me of when I was young I went on a French exchange trip and I stayed with a family who kept snails in their garage specifically to eat. I remember watching them trying to escape as the adults were chatting away and willing them on, but alas they never did and they got picked back in and presumably eaten a few months later. Now it's time to go on the offensive by collecting or trapping slugs to relocate away from your precious crops. The simplest way to do that is to reinstate some of the hiding places you've already removed. Now this may seem counterintuitive, but by placing slug hideouts at carefully considered locations you can collect several slugs at once and then remove them. So the soil here is quite dry so I'm going to start by just wetting it up like that, nice and damp like the slugs love, and then popping our plank of wood on top. Now all I'm going to do is leave it there and then check back in the morning to see what's underneath. I will collect the slugs, remove them to the compost heap, and then replace the plank. Another thing that you can do is to use hollowed out citrus shells like this grapefruit here. This provides a really cool hideout for our slugs. Just pop it on the soil, perhaps just prop it up slightly so they can get in from underneath. Another very effective thing are hollowed out coconut shells, and you can pop one in each corner of your bed to have protection all around. And then there's beer. Now I love a beer just like the next person, and so do our slugs apparently. Now don't waste any craft ales, any really nice beer, just use any old cheap nonsense, and dig out a hole for your slug trap. I use like a ramekin, just leave it slightly raised above the soil. The slugs will still get in but it'll stop things like ground beetles from accidentally slipping in and drowning. We don't want that. Then just fill it with your beer. I've heard actually that the absolute preferred beer for slugs is stout like Guinness. I'm not making that up, true apparently. So add in your beer like that, and then you might want to put a lid over it so the slugs can still get in if it's going to rain, otherwise just leave it uncovered. And then check back every few days, remove any slugs that are in there, and eventually you'll need to just replace the beer as well. If you want to dispatch of your collected slugs, you have a few admittedly rather gruesome options open to you. You can drown them in a bucket of water, squash them, cut them in half... I guess it depends how squeamish you are. Personally I haven't the heart to do all of that. I'm just going to relocate them alive and then hope they don't find their way back. Now if you really want to make an impact on the slug population fast, then go out on a slug hunt. You want to be going out when the slugs are most likely to be gorging, feasting on your plants, and that's shortly after sunset. Now you'll need two things for this. You'll need a bucket to collect your slugs, and of course a flashlight. If you can do this on a wet evening, all the better because there'll be more of them out. Check over plants thoroughly and pop them into your bucket, and then dispose of them well away from the growing areas, a compost heap or a wooded area. Come back the next night and the night after to pick up any stragglers and you'll make a real appreciable dent on those slugs. Don't forget that there are lots of garden visitors that will happily take care of those maddening mollusks. Chief among them are amphibians such as frogs and toads. Now you can encourage them into your garden by having some sort of standing water, a bucket sunken into the ground, anything like that filled with water, or in my case just a simple pre-formed pond. And this one has got some rocks forming a sloping bank at the side so that if a non-aquatic animal falls in it can swim to the side and clamber out. Also around the pond I've got some long grass. Now we don't want that right next to the vegetable garden, but here close by but slightly further away it's ideal. The amphibians, the frogs and toads, will hide out here in the cool and the shade during the day and then move out into the rest of the garden looking for dinner later on. Many bugs are great for slug control too. I am always finding ground beetles in amongst my wood chips here, and that's really good news because ground beetles are very effective slug predators. Including any sort of bug hotel or wood pile in your garden provides plenty of opportunities for carnivorous bugs and beetles. Great for getting at those slugs. Now a quick word of caution, if you do have termites in your area then you might want to err on the side of caution and locate those piles well away from your house. Slugs love fresh sappy growth and a moist environment, so let's bear that in mind so we can garden smart and not lay ourselves open to an attack. Water in the morning if possible because this will give the soil surface enough time to dry out during the day before the slugs emerge at night time. You can protect recent transplants with cloches or anything that creates a physical barrier to keep the slugs out, such as bottomless pots just anchored into place. Vulnerable plants can always be started off in pots or plug trays away from growing areas, then when they're planted out they will be that much bigger and more robust and better able to withstand a slug attack. I'm not a great fan of slug pellets. They're great at killing slugs, but they can have a knock-on effect higher up the food chain as well. Often they've got really nasty chemicals that you don't want in the natural environment. Now the worst slug pellets have got a chemical in called metaldehyde, and that's actually banned in a lot of countries including mine. Nevertheless, slug pellets are pretty nasty stuff so we really should be looking for alternatives. I've used straw in the past, both as a mulch around plants like tomatoes and of course strawberries, but also to grow a great haul of no-dig potatoes. But in some climates straw can harbor slugs, so if you do find that's a problem, stick to crumblier mulches such as good old garden compost. Now potato tubers themselves can also get nibbled by slugs, and main crop potatoes are especially vulnerable to that, probably because they're left in the ground for so long once they're ready. If you do have lots of slugs in your garden, err on the side of caution, dig them all up and store them above ground. It's also worth noting that some potato varieties are more susceptible to slugs than others. One option is to apply microscopic nematodes onto soil affected with slugs. The nematodes are just stirred up into water and then you simply water them over your affected soil once it's warmed up enough in the spring. Now what nematodes do is they find their way inside of the slugs. They then affect them with a bacteria and basically cause them to die. It sounds pretty grim, but they've got absolutely no collateral damage, so this makes it a really, really safe form of slug control. Now I'm sure you've read or seen lots of different barriers recommended as effective against slugs. Well the Royal Horticultural Society conducted a study into this. It tested the effectiveness of several barriers including copper tape, eggshells, bark mulch, sharp grit, and I think it was wool pellets. And do you know what it found? Every single one of them was useless, and I've read other studies that have reached exactly the same conclusion. However, there is one barrier that does show promise and it's called diatomaceous earth. Now what it is, it's ground up silica rock and it's ground up into this fine powder like this. It's really, really uh, it's a real desiccant so it makes the slugs, you know, takes out all the moisture from them. So we can apply this around our plants because they really won't want to cross it. Now if you want to use diatomaceous earth, if it's windy in any way, it's safe just to apply a mask and then lay it around your plants like this. Now one thing you will need to bear in mind is that if it gets wet it ceases to become effective, so you'll need to reapply it. If you do want to use diatomaceous earth, or just DE for short, make sure it's food grade because that's the most effective. It's not exactly cheap, so do consider its use very carefully and only use it around the most precious plants. At the end of the day, persistence really pays off. Keep tidy, remove hiding opportunities, and when necessary go out, look for slugs and bring them back under control. Now of course there's lots and lots of advice on how to control slugs, and if you've got a method I've not mentioned today I would love to hear about it, so please do share it down below in the comments and let everyone know about it so we can all benefit. I would love you to subscribe, tinkle that notification bell on your way out, and why not drop this video a thumbs up if you found it useful because it helps us out. Next week we're getting to grips with corn as we take giant leaps towards perfectly filled cobs every time. If you're growing corn you really won't want to miss that one, so on that note I will catch you next time.