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Got a slug problem? Haven't we all. Hostas, Geums,
Oriental Poppies, Lupins,
Nasturtiums, you name it, they eat it. Big black ones, little grey ones,
they
do the same damage, nibble, nibble, nibble, and the plant is destroyed.
Better nip down to the Garden Centre to buy a chemical to kill them with,
slug pellets, something like that, to further enrich the chemical arsenal
that's already stashed in the garden shed. Just hope the teenagers of the
house don't take up smoking in there, eh, in the garden shed? Chemical
concoctions, cigarettes, matches, could be a mighty explosion in the
offing.
Of course I never use chemicals myself. Far too
expensive. And do they
always work?
If you have a slug problem then get a hedgehog. That's
the answer.
Hedgehogs eat slugs - the slugs that would otherwise eat your plants.
Problem solved. But where do you get hold of a hedgehog? Not from the
Garden
Centre, that's for sure.
"I want a hedgehog, please," you say, "a slug-eating
hedgehog."
"We don't do slug-eating hedgehogs, just slug
pellets."
"Oh," I say, "and what happens if a passing hedgehog
eats the slug pellets?"
"It dies of course."
And therein lies the problem. Catch 22. Use slug
pellets and you have to
keep using them. And a very costly business it is too, for you simply kill
off the natural predators that would otherwise keep the slug population
down
to an acceptable level. Dead hedgehogs in the garden are useless, whereas
live ones are like gold dust.
Now you can't buy hedgehogs in the Garden Centre of
course, but what you can buy is hedging plants – hedging plants that will
grow into fine hedges and
provide just the right sort of environment for passing hedgehogs.
Now if all this sounds too complicated, too time
consuming, then a patch of
scrub land in the garden, a small over-grown area with weeds and a bit of
long grass (a miniature 'wildlife' garden really) will attract them as
well.
While you're waiting for passing hedgehogs to turn up
and populate your
garden, of course, you'll have to tolerate a bit of slug damage now and
again, that's inevitable. But if you have a particular plant in the garden
that's a cherished one, then sprinkle a handful of salt or some grit
around
it as a slug barrier. Slugs don't like this. Slugs like to glide over
smooth surfaces, not sharp or salty ones.
But the best method of all, the guaranteed 'one hundred per
cent' method of
eradicating slugs, is to buy a torch, go slug hunting at night and then
pick
them off by hand. Simple as that. A fun activity, and an activity that
will surely enrich your personal life.
What is it tonight, then? The pub, the cinema, early to bed
for a bit of
'this and that', or a spot of slug hunting by torchlight? It's got to be
slug hunting, hasn't it? Slug hunting by torchlight. Great fun.
Now if all this sounds too complicated, too wishy-washy, a
load of
horticultural mumbo-jumbo – pure hogwash – then there's nothing to prevent
you from buying an assortment of chemical applications from the Garden
Centre
to kill them with. But be careful, because one man's chemical solution to
the
problem is another man's time bomb. So there we are.
(copy write Patrick Vickery 2002)
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