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Pestwatch Special

Sue Stickland takes a look at some alternative pea and bean crops you can grow on your plot

Of all garden pests, slugs and snails cause the most concern to UK gardeners. Unfortunately our climate is ideal for them and they thrive virtually all year round, in the case of slugs, only becoming completely dormant when the weather is very cold or very hot and dry.
The damage they do is often easy to see – tattered leaves and seedlings reduced to stumps as soon as they emerge from the soil or compost. What is sometimes less obvious, especially to new gardeners, is the damage caused below ground. Beginners will often blame themselves or the weather when a row of seedlings fails to emerge, but often failure will be due to slugs lurking below the surface where it is relatively safe, warm and moist.

There are many species of slugs and snails to be found in our gardens, but while most eat plants (there are a few predatory slugs out there to help keep their vegetarian cousins in check), not all cause much harm. It is tempting to think that the big black or brown slug with the orange 'skirt', Arion ater, must be the most harmful, but in fact the small species, such as the keeled slug (Milax spp) are much more damaging to our crops. This little black slug spends much of its life in the soil and is the one often found clinging to carrots and other root crops when lifted or inside holes they have made in potato tubers by harvest time.
Of the snails, the garden snail (Helix aspersa) is by far the most troublesome and can often be found hibernating in large numbers in cracks and crevice

Controlling slugs and snails

Non-chemical controls
There are lots of ways that gardeners can reduce the numbers of pests around fruit and veg without resorting to pesticides. Slugs and snails belong to the massive family of molluscs, most of which live in water. Our land-based mollusc pests need to keep themselves moist and hidden from their many predators at all times and therefore tend to hide away during the day. Depriving them of suitable places to spend the daylight hours, such as piles of fallen leaves, rotting wood, general rubbish, overgrown patches etc, will reduce the population. Digging too helps to expose the eggs and any soil-dwelling individuals to predators such as birds, hedgehogs, frogs and toads.

Traps
Traps offer a simple, but effective way to reduce the numbers of slugs present among your crops. There are many types available in garden centres and via mail order and they can also be made easily at home by simply burying a jam jar in the soil close to vulnerable plants. All have a 'sump' of some kind and it is a simple matter of filling this with a liquid to attract the pests and to drown them. Stale beer works well as does sugary water. Do empty the traps regularly however, as the resulting slug 'soup' is not pleasant if left for too long!
Another form of trap is simply to place half of an empty orange or grapefruit skin on the soil. Slugs soon crawl underneath to rest in the cool, moist atmosphere and can be 'harvested' each morning.

 

 

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