A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2003 Slugs

Hi - am a new member and have a problem. I have trouble with slugs in my garden, and read that salt will keep them away. So, happily I went on a "salt spree", but am now wondering whether I over salted, as some of the plants appear "droopy". Any suggestions?

Hi there,
I'm fairly new too, but I might have an answer for you. This weekend I happened to see Paul James the gardening guy on TV talk about an over-salted garden (due to synthetic fertilizers in his case). He said to make compost tea and water your plants with it. It will take a few dousings but he said it will slowly restore the balance in the soil. To make the tea put some compost in a bucket, add water and let it steep a day or two in the sun. I'm going to try it myself this week because I have been using synthetic fertilizers and I want to be more natural.

For the slug problem, I have an awful snail and slug invasion on my hostas and I have found Corry's Slug and Snail Death to work well. But you have to keep it up and clean away all the places they like to hide, under leaves and debris.

Good luck. I hope it helps. I'll post something if I have any great results myself.

gardengal

ok ya'll, do a site search here on the forum and you will find pages and pages on discussion on the best way to deal with slugs. There are some really good and some really interesting info on how to stop/kill them.

A natural Slug killer------------Crushed egg shells. Yes, it works!! I put them around my Hostas. Get two for one puts calcium in the soil and does in the slugs.

Hi Jake, Welcome.

Like Jiffymouse said, there are several discussions on slugs & Snails at this Forum.
You can also read up info at this link:
http://www.thegardenhelper.com/slugs.html

And, like Mom54, I also favor the use of eggshells.