Set those beer traps: record numbers of slugs this year!
The weather may have been less than ideal for you and me this summer, but for slugs it’s been perfect – warm and wet! This has caused record numbers of the beasties in gardens and crops throughout the UK, with estimates of numbers up to 15 billion. Research this year suggests this figure is a 50% increase on previous years and could rise even more if the weather continues wet and warm, as long-range forecasts indicate.
The period of hot, dry weather which we usually see at some point during the summer kills off a large number of slugs before the harvest season, but as this hasn’t happened this year, wheat crops could be affected. Conventional farmers are using twice as many slug pesticides as normal. As for the rest of us, join me in my twilight prowl round my garden, picking off the slugs by hand!
See BBC News for further information.
Don't pick slugs off plants by hand at night. Make them come to you by placing ten or so cat biscuits ( They love Go Cat )in small piles around the garden. Wait a couple of hours and you will have up to 20 slugs awaiting collection at each pile especially on a damp evening.
Posted by: Ray Sebire | August 25, 2007 9:10 AM