Oh dear,MJ..we are experiencing the same problems here,whatever method we use..organically,like me,or nasty stuff.but the little B's still win ! I don't grow veg anymore,as not enough space..so can't help you on that side of it..and when you find 'three in a bed.'.or pot,in my case, all 'clinging ',together..in an amorous way,no doubt..what chance do we have? ..even found them at the very top of an Aucuba..only way is stalking them.whatever time of day,or night !...no easy answer I'm afraid..

Ok, Bloomer, I've found them on plants that the books say 'they don't like' (presumably slugs/snails are too busy eating to read those books!) clearly I'm going to have to indulge my serial killer instincts... shall buy the next wellie boots (chameau shoes here, v.expensive), with an eye to whether the tread is right for slug and snail squashing!

What I want to know is.......are slugs edible? Especially when you get really upset with them after they get to your courgettes first. Reading a book on Livingstone et al currently, and it did say in there that slavers, killed in the jungle by his escort, were carrying 'cooked slugs'. Suggesting that bit of jungle hunted out. Some people eat snails, of similar construction, with garlic and butter very tasty too.

Sorry about the medals.....we surprised ourselves I think. Lots of multicultural and 'inclusive' helpers comprised Team GBR too. We were united with all hands to the pumps, to produce 29 discs of GOLD to be nibbled after presentation.

Sorry, tried all your remedies, but battalions of them keep coming like Roman Legions and Vikings, to pillage the courgettes. Maybe we need a Napoleon of the snails to administer a 'coup de grace and french for slug'

It's a big problem this year because of all the wet - there's been an explosion in the population of both these slimy beasts.
Sorry, monjardiniere, I have no solution to offer which is organic and effective. In years like these, you either allow the beasts to run riot and eat everything, or you practise judicious and frequent use of the little blue pellets of death - metaldehyde based slug pellets, sprinkled lightly every 3 or 4 days. And when I say lightly, I mean lightly - I've seen 'em spread to the point where the soil looks blue... what a waste and completely unnecessary.

I,ve a country garden and let them get on with it hoping the wildlife will do their best......mind you......... .even the resident toad in the gh looks overfed........and the slimetrails like a mad railway junction...

Having said that about slug pellets in my last comment, I haven't personally used anything at all on the garden where I live, just left 'em to get on with it. Paid the price though - the Lobelia cardinalis is just a bunch of chewed, short stems...

Carol Klein had the answer on Gardeners' World on Friday evening. Plant only plants that slugs don't like. After I had fished out my (empty) beer bottle from the hole in the television screen I tried to work out how much she got paid for advice like that. And to think I used to *like* her for her sensible approach to gardens. :o((

LOL, Sarraceniac! She apparently also said that slugs and snails don't eat foxgloves, but others have said theirs have been nibbled this year, well, the non mature leaves anyway. I wouldn't mind that advice, but let's face it, this has been an extraordinary year for rainfall - what's the point in choosing plants slugs don't like if we end up with another 3 very dry years... It's not so long since we were all advised to plant mediterranean style plants because its so dry now. Drives you bonkers really.

I,ve just moved some heucheras from pots to a big sandstone trough, the pots that I'd put in big shiny blue terracotta pots are full of big slugs and snails, the ones in between without the blue pot have no molluscs at all....maybe one answer is not to cover the plastic pots?

How do snails climb up my hollyhocks - as if i didnt know - and eat the leaves 5' off the ground, and I pick them off the top os my runner beans.

I put some gladioli bulbs in pots and they have been eaten by something nasty. Not sure if it was slugs but now put them in the garden soil instead. Sprinkled all around with slug pellets and keeping my fingers crossed. I'm not only fighting a battle with the slugs but a constant battle with bindweed which is creeping from next door's garden.

Unfortunately I am surrounded on all sides by elderly or infirm neighbours who are not able to look after their gardens for obvious reasons.

It's a war against brambles, bindweed, leylandii and an overgrown plumb which is so old it doesn't produce any flowers or fruit. Possibly so dry as the leylandii suck all the moisture out of the ground. Resorting to planters and pots instead.

Hmm. 'There was something nasty in the woodshed.'

Sorry that is a terrible reference to 'Cold Comfort Farm' (which I find very funny indeed). Sounds like your situation Susie. :o)

My balcony (on the top with 3 below) was covered in snail/slug trails this morning - I've visions of them shinning up the walls overnight, they must be athletic ones

Bonjour Bamboo they do shin up the walls overnight (well, the snails do...) In Norfolk I used to practise environmentally friendly gardening and chuck them in the nice grassy ditch over the road ('plenty to eat, leave me alone') - next morning they (or their friends-and-relations) were a few inches from my upstairs window!

Material for a horror movie?

Alfred Hitchcock presents 'The Gastropods'.

Persistent and determined little beggars then, lol. I remember someone on here experimenting by putting a dob of nail varnish on snail shells in different colours. She then chucked some of the snails over the fence, some further away, and some a good distance away, according to the colours. The ones she'd chucked nearby were all back the next day... but the ones taken some distance weren't. Seems like you have to collect them up and drive them a distance away, and given their athletic prowess, a container with a lid so they don't crawl all over the car, lol

I saw that idea posted by you a while back bamboo. I collected a mixed bag of snails and slugs and took them a decent walk to the culverted River Rom, with a weeded island near the footbridge, and lobbed them into the island. Not long after that the clean up the river guys paid a visit and it all got scraped up. Double victory. I did it again after they ate a lovely Dahlia I bought, down to stalks (just budding up again), under a large transparent orchid pot cover at night time. This time in the brambles in the unculverted part of the river.

Imagine all those people secretly dumping slugs and snails in 'wild' areas - would probably count as highly suspicious behaviour if there'd been a nasty crime locally, lol. They'd be dragging the river for the bodies or weapons...

Makes change from supermarket carts, curtain poles, and even a dumper truck that went over into the Rom Bamboo. Plus a load of house bricks tipped over the bridge into the natural stream section. I reported that tipping crime and they were removed the same day. I saw them doing it and jotted a number down. Cycling past in my days of early morning exercise.

Dear all: I have to confess slugicide. 3 of the most humungous little beggars (brown, 3 inches long) were congregating beneath my outdoor tap for a party (dead drought, 31 degrees, parched grass and wilting hydrangeas etc., elsewhere in garden) - they even congregated on the football field when the village recently had a fete...

I took my designer grey salt (all I had to hand), and sprinkled...

I never thought I had killer instincts... But the last dahlia had succumbed, so I had to take it out on something...!

We gardeners are meant to be mild and benevolent, caressing furry leaves, etc. aren't we? Never believe it, I think that, faced with slugs, this is all a front!

I never remember the name of that symbol which is half black and half white, but it entirely represents not just gardeners, but humans generally - both the slaughter and the nurture exist in a single gardener, and one doesn't negate the other. I might well be talking lovingly to a lily plant with lily beetle whilst simultaneously crushing the beetles to spare the lily. Ruthless lot really, lol!

Ah, you mean the 'Taijitu', the symbol of yin and yang, or if you are a gardener, the symbol of fertilizer and weed killer. :o))

When you're down

Wearing a frown :o(

Don't delay

Take BAPS today

****************

Ba's Baps will brighten your day

And perk up the roses on the way.........

****************

Blimey, if its called a taijitu, then I never knew its name, Sarraceniac - never heard it before. Lord knows what I thought it was called.

I,m having a senior moment and its all that Ba and her new health giving food.....well you know Ba ( under the blog about the holly hock).........sorry. :0)

Well I've had alook at the hollyhock blog, but can't see any reference to BAPS or health food, Pamg...

Can't youBamboo? The one about rust free hollyhocks.....

Its just a bit of daft. :0)

Ba has a lovely sense of humor and wanted a jingle to market her potash booster for people.........and I got mixed up!....

Steragram thought it would bring a bloom to the skin.... :0))

Ah - I didn't read all the comments, sorry

:0))))