We should deter slugs, not destroy them
Slugs have to be one of the most unwelcome residents on the allotment at this time of year. Under cover of darkness they slither out and wreak silent havoc in the strawberries and hide away in the hearts of otherwise perfect lettuces. Later in the year they set up house in the middle of cabbages.
In desperation, gardeners turn to all kinds of home remedies. Egg shells drying to a crisp are a familiar sight in the bottom of my oven. I surround seedlings with the finely crushed shards. Other popular methods of reducing the population include trapping them under upturned grapefruit skins, or tempting them in to saucers of beer. There seems to be some evidence that copper works as a deterrent. Plotholder Mark, in Livingston, uses a copper hoe and feels the tiny copper filings left in the soil may be deterring slugs. Back in the Second World War, Mr CH Middleton, pioneer of the Dig for Victory campaign, recommended a rather drastic solution – spearing them with a hatpin before drowning them in salty water.
Some comparison of what really works is long overdue. It’s good that The Royal Horticultural Society is carrying out scientific studies this summer to compare some popular deterrents. Entomologist Dr Hayley Jones is leading the work. Her team are testing copper tape, sharp grit, pine bark mulch, wool pellets, and my favourite egg shells. The results will be published this autumn.
A more natural solution to slug problems is to encourage birds that eat them. After many years’ absence,
A more natural solution is to encourage the birds that eat them
song thrushes have been welcome visitors to my plot. Their diet is slugs, snails and worms. I hope their return is down to a growing awareness that poisoning slugs and snails with blue metaldehyde slug pellets has a disastrous knock-on effect for other creatures.
Sir David Attenborough, who has done so much recently to raise awareness of how easy it is to irrevocably damage the environment, comes out strongly in favour of slugs and snails saying that if these invertebrates were to disappear overnight, the world’s ecosystems would collapse. There are more than 40 species of slug resident in the UK and only a small number of them are garden pests as not all of them feed on vegetation. Buglife (www.buglife. org.uk) acknowledges that slugs have little public appeal, but reminds us that it’s not only song thrushes that need them, but hedgehogs, frogs and toads. n