Why homespun remedies WON’T stop peckish slugs
THEY are the tried and tested methods many gardeners swear by for keeping slugs at bay. But popular homemade deterrents designed to stop them won’t actually protect your prized plants at all, a study suggests.
A series of traditional remedies, from copper tape to eggshells, were found to be no help in warding slugs and snails off lettuce, the Royal Horticultural Society found.
In light of the results, the garden experts are recommending greenfingered growers embrace natural predators such as birds instead, or put down traps – or just physically remove slugs and snails by hand.
Gardeners can also use slug pellets to stop the pests – as long as they stick to the manufacturer’s instructions to minimise any risks to other wildlife, experts said.
The study saw 108 lettuces sown in a series of pots and raised beds at the RHS’s John MacLeod Field Research Facility in Wisley, Surrey, and treated with various methods for controlling slugs and snails, including nothing at all. The five home remedies tried out in the study were copper tape, horticultural grit, pine bark mulch, wool pellets and eggshells. The lettuces were grown for six weeks before being harvested and the leaves of each lettuce examined to work out the proportion of damage. Results showed that the slugs and snails inflicted the same amount of damage on the lettuces treated with the remedies as those without. Lettuces treated with wool pellets or pine bark did yield a bigger crop, however, as the treatments acted as a fertiliser, the RHS said.
Although the rough and sharp textures of the home remedies might look unattractive for softbodied creatures, the thick slime of slugs and snails is a protective shield, allowing them to glide over the barriers, the experts suggested. Dr Hayley Jones, entomologist at the RHS and lead researcher, said: ‘Many gardeners could be wasting time and money