Hunting in my greenhouse ...

rolion

H All,

I have reached the stage of dispair...every evening i'm having my tea and go hunting inside the greenhous after those small little pesks... slugs !

They've taken over inside, the soil and plants...catching every evening around 10 of them...smaller,yellow and very small ones.

Salad is compromised completely...radish and spinach and beetrot next,they are moving across the plots.
I found them on the roof too...salad is on the shelves 1.5m above the soil and they still found a fcuking disgusting way to reach it and compromise it. A pepper plant almost a meter high still has those small things on the top leafs,are they flying !??

I read online a lot about it...what solutions we have locally here that works against them before i decide to desinfect the whole GH soil in December !?
Where can i find some copper wires or tapes to get them locked in a single place ? I throwed salt inside the pipes,hoping to get them away but no joy.

Thanks

mr chips

What has worked fairly well for me has been crushed eggshell.  Any time we make something with eggs, we keep the shells and then the next time the oven has been in use, pop them in immediately after switching it off* - the residual heat is sufficient to bake them enough that when you crush them (I just use the potato masher), they break into sharper fragments.  Slugs hate crawling over these the way that we would hate walking barefoot over thistles.  I spread the crushed eggshell thickly around the stem of any vulnerable plant like tomato, pepper etc and ensure that there's no gap big enough to be a "path" to the plant.  At the same time I make sure that no foliage etc reaches down from the plant to outside the protective circle, effectively providing a ladder.

Another trick can be beer traps - apparently these need to be a dark beer like ale or stout, rather than lager.  Slugs love beer and will drown happy so long as it's deep enough.  Just make sure to leave a twig or a lollipop stick so that any useful critters like beetles will be able to climb out if they fall in.

*Don't make the mistake of putting the eggshells in and forgetting to switch the oven off.  The stink of burnt eggshell is appalling!

endacl

evolving_doors

I gave a recipe for making yer own nematodes a while back on this forum if you want to do a search...

Beer traps just attract more.

beer enigma

evolving_doors wrote: »

Beer traps just attract more.

So true, the traps may kill them, but the beer itself appears to be a real attraction to even more slugs !

I bought some copper paint from woodies and painted all the open edges, door, window frames etc and it seems to have made a huge difference in mine

my3cents

Sorry to take this off topic OP but when I first read the thread title after Ophelia I read it as "Hunting for my Greenhouse"

beer enigma

my3cents wrote: »

Sorry to take this off topic OP but when I first read the thread title after Ophelia I read it as "Hunting for my Greenhouse"

Haha that would be exactly my problem after the storms

rolion

Hi all,

Thanks for reply,much obliged !

Just back from the GH and found soem of my plants touching the wall foil and creating a very wattery area...guess what,at least 15 of the small babies were having a nice time out there...i tought i lost my mind taking one by one,very small and very slippy.
I have to get there Saturday and run a full clean-up and make sure i have no easy hidding and humid places,lefs and corners.

I switch on the LED lights now earlier and with the lights on,the catched pests were runing and hiding in the shadow,like away from the lights ..is that possible ??

Tried the beer and not so succesful...wasnt able to support the smell and look of the wasted mushy old beer.

I "enjoyed" it catching and releasing some of them and happy to find that they dont ran in the ground at all...few of them were heading in the same direction,like a RTH (ReturnToHome) red alert... I will keep track of the areas where are the most present...if i can find that RTH point,i may be able to target it more intense. But ,at my mileage, the legs and knees are not supporting the waiting time.

I filled the hrv pipes with salt and granules until i think they are full at the bottom of the pipe circumference but not on the top of it,allowing an easy access walking path...

I have few ceilling hanged ceramic heater elements and i found that in the areas where they work overnight are few less or none pests present ! Could be that the heat affects them or the ground being dry ? I stopped watering every day,now only when soil is really hard.

I searched "woodies" online for copper paint but no results found,i appreciate if someone can point me in the right page or product.

Same,read about nematodes,i will really really give a go over the winter month, when full GH soil will be refreshed !

Many thanks.

PS
Sorry for no photos as they are not pleasant...