By Petitebabe
Derbyshire,
United Kingdom 
Has anyone had the same problem as me this year with slugs? I got really huge ones in my garden decimating my potato plants!!! Normally i use nematodes at the start of the season. However the weather here has been up and down hot in march which is when i ordered the nematodes. By the time they had arrived the temperature had dropped so dramatically that i could not apply them as the soil temperature has to be 5 deg or above. I have a soil thermometre in for this purpose. Nematodes only last 2 weeks. I kept them in the fridge however it was 1 month later before the soil temperature rose enough to water them in by which time i think they had failed to work having gone by their use by date. I definately think they have failed as the slugs have eaten everything in my garden even my carrots tops!! i have never know slugs to eat carrot tops before! Should i have just watered them in anyway despite the low temperature?
31 Jul, 2012
Answers
thanx totally agree with you overrun! tried beer doesnt seem to have slowed them down any plus the rain waters it down very quickly! have children so try to keep it chemical free. trouble is the rain this year usually spray on garlic water just gets washed off, don't have time to keep applying stuff hence i usually use the nematodes. Would love to have hedgehogs in my garden however we live on a busy trunk road and i don't know if this puts them off coming in my garden. I always leave a pile of leaves in one corner from them but don't have hedghogs here :-( no ponds around here either so no frogs dont have room for a pond plus the children!!!!!!
31 Jul, 2012
Certainly a common problem. I noticed it back in March and bought slug pellets...too late for the delphiniums I invested in! They do work but I also have to go out every so often at dusk and pop 30-40 into salty water. That has made a difference as the Pea and Sweet Pea where decimated now in full bloom and no damage to potatoes - last year they were shredded. I have at least 4 frogs and a hedgehog that comes and goes, so pellets and animals can live side by side. My children do not pick at the tiny blue pellets...too small and that blue colour is off putting for a reason.
Being generally tidy also helps, so old leaves and dead plants that attract them need to be pulled.
31 Jul, 2012
You might get some ideas here;
http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Slugs%20and%20Snails/Slugs%20&%20Snails.htm
31 Jul, 2012
Try some snack traps! A couple of lettuce leaves placed upside down between plants will create a 'house' under which they'll congregate and munch away - until you come to retrieve the leaf and the slugs. This also works with halved grapefruit shells. You enjoy the grapefruit first, then cut a 'door' on one edge, place the shell (not TOO empy of fruit) upside down and in they'll go! These 'sacrifices' keep them busy and in one place for collection, while leaving your plants alone.
1 Aug, 2012
Has anyone tried dried chili flakes? Works on rabbits but maybe molluscs are immune.....
1 Aug, 2012
Thanx everybody tried oats in a bag check the bag at night nothing in there! Thanx for the link Teegee some really interesting info on slugs ugh! I tried chilli pamg and they sure didnt like it!!!! didn't kill them and rain would wash it away fast!!!
9 Aug, 2012
I do feel for you. I too have been over run with slugs and snails. I go out every evening and drop them in beer at least 40- 50 every evening and sometimes many more. I have lost quite a few perennials which have been stripped to just bare stems. Usually the frogs and hedgehogs control them but this year is like no other year.
31 Jul, 2012