Watch out for slugs, and control them in the vegetable garden!
- Slugs eat young seedlings and will completely destroy your plans.
- Slugs like warm, moist conditions. So this spring has been perfect for them.
- Assume you will have slugs and be prepared.
- Keep the vegetable garden tidy. Slugs will make camp under anything:- weeds, old leaves & branches, stones & plant pots, soil clods. So remove all potential hideouts.
- Keep the soil raked, so that it is small crumbs and there are no clods for slugs to hide under.
Think biological control:
- hedgehogs will fight the battle for you
- guinea fowl & other birds help
- dry, fine dusty material sticks to the slug & turns them away. Put a ring of soot around the seedlings
- rosemary needles deter slugs
- small cups of beer dropped into the ground act as traps
If all else fails invest in some slug pellets to control slugs in the garden.