Dealing with slugs The good, the bad, and the ugly

SLUGS and snails are fascinating and play an important role in the environment. Right? Yes and no. They’re certainly part of life’s rich tapestry. Like moles, badgers and deer, I wouldn’t dream of chasing them away from my garden.

Molluscs are great recyclers, breaking down dead and dying vegetation, and I’ve even seen them described as ‘ecosystem engineers’. They help weed out any plant species that can’t cope with their predation. And some opportunistic plants even produce seed that molluscs can digest and widely disperse.

Seemingly an enterprising Australian once capitalised on the Cellar slug’s taste for moulds by placing some in his bathroom to feed on his mouldy grouting. He reckoned it was easier to clean up the slime than the mould.

Although we have our favourite bad guys, there are quite a few rare and unusual species like the blind, soil-dwelling ghost slug. The Lemon slug is pretty elusive, only emerging from the soil in autumn and early winter to feed on the fruiting bodies of fungi.

So much for their defence. You’ll have read my less than enthusiastic comments on molluscs over the years. The trouble is: they behave like every other living thing, including us, and fully exploit their surroundings.

We’re very defensive about our small, mollusc-friendly gardens and stoutly defend them against all nibblers. Neither side is interested in ‘share and share alike’. I’m sure I’m not the only one fighting a full-scale war and glad of every weapon to hand.

I don’t include utterly useless barriers like coarse grit, crushed egg shells, hair or sheep wool. Sticky copper tape is quite effective. But I find vaseline smeared round a large inverted yoghurt pot protects young transplants nicely.

Another free trick is using home-made beer dregs in my slug traps. Like me, they’re drawn irresistibly to yeasty beer. Slug X traps perform well, but homemade lidded beer sumps are also good.

It pays to keep traps regularly refreshed all-year round. They work well anywhere and show up the most slug-infested corners. I shift them around: whenever the haul of victims collapses, I’ll move on for richer pickings.

My mulched raised beds aren’t devoid of slugs, so as well as strategically-placed traps, I scatter organic slug pellets round the edges to entice visitors to enjoy a tasty blue hors d’oeuvre before their green salad. It’s also vital to catch ‘em in the tunnel before they settle into the heart of a spring cabbage.

The biological control, Nemaslug, is an important weapon. The soil must be moist to let the nematodes ‘swim’ around in the surface film of water on soil particles, so I apply the control before laying an extra mulch that keeps in the moisture.

You can never let down your guard: apart from dry or very cold