One way that seems to work for many gardeners is to sink a jamjar up to its rim near the plants being effected and pour a little beer into it. This seems to attract the slugs and they stay in the jar and can be removed daily.

Of course slug killing chemicals can be used if you are inclined. My preference is to use non-chemical means.

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I find the multi-pronged approach works best for me. This means: beer traps, night-time safaris with a torch and regular checking of likely snail/slug heaven (underneath pots, greenhouse corners, etc). I also try to encourage song birds into the garden, but thrushes seem to be in short supply here :( I've recently taken to putting out special hedgehog food, but I think the foxes are eating it :(

Alcina

i read and experienced it myself, beer trap works but your also attracting your neighboorhood's slug aswell, so your making matters worst. try using milk instead, or coffee grind, half grapefruit upside down, copper around the pot or plant, save your hair after an haircut and put it around the plant, comfrey herb it will attract the slug, wd-40 on your pot (i'm trying this one this year!) etc etc etc.

Re the above message I had read about the copper rings to put round pots and was sceptical about its efficiency. However I work in stained glass so have rolls of copper foil available and when the snails took a liking to some of my passionflowers (particularly the Edulis/Edulis hybrids) I tried putting a tie of copper foil round the stem and its worked!! Obviously this wouldn't work at complete ground level but if you want to protect a plant with some sort of stem its easy. I have since bought fine copper sheeting (from a craft shop) which I cut into pieces with a small hole in the middle which I then put over seedlings (all my sweet peas are intact).

I have found that since I put in my pond the frogs eat a lot of the slugs. I once watched one stay just one stone behind the slug for hours. As the slug moved on a little way to the next stone (pond edging) the frog would move the same distance and always stayed at one stone distance. I don't know if he ever ate it. Maybe he wasn't hungry but kept it in view just in case he became a little peckish... Anyway the slug and snail population has certainly decreased and at least it is natures way of controling them rather than poisoning or drowning them.
Alison

Try this '50 Ways to Kill a Slug' by
Sarah Ford, some funny, some disgusting, all very informative and useful...

I had that book bought for me for my birthday along with a can of chocolate slugs. I must admit the chocolate slugs tasted delicious and the book is amusing in places.
Alison

Last year I spent about £11 on Nemaslug. It's a powder that contains micro-organisms which you water into the soil. It attacks slugs and kills them. Also, it's totally harmless to animals and birds. If you apply it just when everything is growing like mad, it will let your plants have a chance to grow just until they are big enough not to be completely nipped in the bud. It kept my garden clear for about six weeks. It probably really needed another application but I thought I'd try beer traps (messy!) Good luck!

I avoid beer traps for the same reason stated by someone above - you attract your neighbour's slugs. I do the following:
1. I go out with a torch but I do also use pellets from time to time. This is open to criticism I know, but Peter Seagrave has stated there is evidence that birds do avoid the pellets - and I have found in the morning birds avoided dead slugs.
2. I deliberately leave out 'shelter' for slugs near plants I know slugs like - so I can find them there in the morning & destroy! eg under a block of wood, a large pot etc. It works - try it!
3. When I thin out seedlings I leave extra in for the slugs for a while to distract them away from my favoured plants. 4. I always have more seeds than I can use so I do sow a few deliberately near to hostas, delphs, dahlias just to give slugs something else that is young and succulent to go for. Once the seedlings have grown on a bit then I do eventually have to pull them out of course but they are then a nice size for the compost heap - or to give away to friends ideally.

as a follower of permaculture may say 'You don't have a problem with slugs, you have a deficiency of ducks'. So, buy some pets, ones that waddle around and go 'quack quack', and of course you could turn your garden into a wildlife habitat and encourage hedgehogs, they love slugs, thet're easy to encourage and you could evn use your garden to release/look after injured/orphaned hedgehogs (not that i have a thing about native wildlife of course)

try:

http://www.hedgehog.org.uk

So in conclusions, turn your garden into a santuary for hedgehogs

Not much point in having a wildlife habitat when it's surrounded by a concrete jungle tho - the hedgehogs (if there are any left that aren't in tyre treads) would never make it!

Just a pity the b*****s aren't better to eat, isn't it? Now if they were like those yummy little snails you get in Spain...

That is a poor view of the united kingdom, open you eyes and ears and you may actaully see that there is quite a lot of wildlife under your nose, just most people never even bother to look, try it

I would like to know how to keep my delphiniums safe as I have just planted them and although I don't get a lot of slugs and snails because of my frogs, they still managed to get my 2 plants last year. I have just bought and planted two more, and would like to know if there is anything I can do to save these plants without killing the hungry hoards. Can anyone give me a clue please?
Yewtree- I find there is so much wildlife in my garden and I am finally getting brave enough to pick up worms and spiders. In the pond there is so much that just suddenly appears and I often wonder where it all comes from. We have 3 squirrels up in our sycamore tree and so many varieties of birds that love to bathe or drink from the pond. We sometimes see hedgehogs as well and one night I went into the garden and there was such a noise coming from inside one of the binliners put out next to the bin. On looking in there was a hedgehog having a real good feed.I couldn't believe what a noisy eater he was. We left him to it. They are lovely creatures. You can see some of my insects and birds and pond creatures etc on my website. It is www.the-horsfalls.co.uk
Alison

I find delphs grown from seed are much more slug-resistant than bought in ones. Seed ones are the only ones that have survived my slugs from hell.

If only, Yew tree! I look all the time and see that the panorama is a sad one indeed compared to in my childhood twenty years ago.

I think when you have a serious problem, like them eating your plants even when you have frogs and use other methods this is a justifiable case for using pellets for a brief time. Most of the year I do use alternatives as stated above but to keep on top of the problem I use the blue pellets (which birds avoid) sparingly and as rarely as possible.

As I said before in reply to another post, I only use ash from the fireplace. Heap it around the plant and you can be sure the slugs won't go anywhere near it. Keep topping it up regularly all through the growing season. We save the ash from our fireplace all winter and then use it in the garden for the rest of the year.

I have a large and active toad population, and several hedgehogs, but I still get slug and snail damage to my plants, probably because my garden is on a heavy clay base. As with many other garden problems, I've found it best accept things as they are. Most plants still look OK when they have been slightly nibbled. I don't grow plants like hostas that I know are going to be shredded by hungry gastropods.

I have a lot of slugs and snails in my garden, which is quite heavy clay with lots of shade and damp places. However, we also get our fair share of frogs and hopefully will have more once we've dug our pond. We used copper piping to form barriers around our veg patch but have since seen slugs crawling over the pipes to get to the plants. I've since read that you need a wider expanse of copper to deter them, so copper sheeting or tape might be a better bet (but only practicable around defined areas such as a small veg patch).

I try not to plant things too soon but let them grow on in pots until they can withstand a bit of damage - otherwise they risk getting razed to the ground. Patrolling after dark with a bright torch and a large pair of scissors certainly keeps the numbers down. There seem to be more blackbirds about at this time of year (though unfortunately I haven't seen any thrushes) which also helps.

I keep reading on American sites about a slug pellet based on iron phosphate, which apparently isn't harmful to pets or other wildlife. I don't know if you can get it in the UK - has anybody tried it?

Re the 25% ammonia / 75% water solution - apparently needs a direct hit on said slug to be effective, (would take me all night) but would the ammonia damage plants? Also I have read on another thread to boil Couch Grass roots in water, and spray with the solution. Has anyone tried this?. Does the solution have to be diluted at all, and DOES IT WORK ?.

The ammonia turns to nitrogen on the plants and will not harm them as long as you dilute it. I use 50% water 50% amonia and a little Murphy's Oil Soap. It's the kind of soap you use on wood. I treated my garden with this solution two nights ago after dark and killed dozens. I went out last night and found about 5 or 6. The oil soap leave a very light film on the plants, so later on if one eats from it it'll die from the trots.

I'll go out again tonight and tomorrow, but I don't think I'll find many. Then maybe once a week I'll check. It works incredibly well and it's easy on the pocket book as well!

Well I live on a fairly large council estate admittedly not far from fields and there is no shortage of birds and foxes here as well as the occasional hedgehog.

You'd be suprised just how plentiful wildlife is in the town these days.

Mind you over-feeding encourages rats. So be careful.