Gardening forum The Garden Network - MariaGreenhill - Battle commences - Slugs v hostas round 1. My hostas are just beginning to peep through the soil and my annual battle against the enemy slug has begun. I am a largely organic

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MariaGreenhill's blog

Battle commences

6:57 PM on 14 April 2008

Filed under: My garden

Slugs v hostas round 1. My hostas are just beginning to peep through the soil and my annual battle against the enemy slug has begun. I am a largely organic gardener so my first line of defence is an early application of nematodes. My second line of defence is physical barriers against the snails – I use plastic circles cut from squash bottles immediately around the crowns and also use a mulch of grit around them. Third defence – physical removal. I used to take them for a long walk to another location until an experiment revealed that most of them just walked back again. Enough said... walkies are much shorter now. I am a professional and commercial member of the organic society and eagerly try out all their suggestion – although sitting naked in the garden and scaring them was even too much for me. Well must go... nightly slug patrol commences...

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AliceBowe - 10:42 AM on 15 September 2008

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Ever keen to find an organic solution to the slug infestation, I have been trying out a Redbush Mulch this year - and have had pretty good results...
Essentially, it's a waste product from the Redbush (Rooibos) tea industry, that you spready in a circle around vunerable plants such as hostas.
I presume it works for a couple of reasons:
1/ It's aromatic
2/ It's a bit spikey
3/ It's high in copper trace elements

Combine this with a couple of nematode applications and Robert's your mothers brother

gardendesigner - 8:15 PM on 14 April 2008

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Good luck Maria ! I too am an organic gardener with quite a shady garden with lots of slug hiding places. I don't have too many problems with slugs apart from on the vegetable garden. I use large water bottles and also Fito slug stoppa granules which seem to work really well. We have a very good bird and frog population so they seem to keep the slugs at bay and my chickens also help. Not so nice to watch! They do say that you should get out on valentine's night and remove the slugs before they mate but i've never tried that !! Anyway for a gardener I'm terribly squeamish- don't like to touch the slugs especially the big orange ones!
Hope you are successful
Stacy

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