Charly's grow blog 2020

[Charly]

Metaldehyde is the answer. Sprinkle some around in the garden and enjoy the sudden lack of slugs and snails.

pier

Thanks for the advice, but I try to use little to no chemical at all.

Metaldehyde is dangerous not only for slugs, but also for a lot of animals, so I won't use it.

The only chemical I use is "Ferric phosphate", which is relatively "safe", to try to reduce the slug pressure (because each year in early spring we have a LOT of slugs... and a few snails).
As I said, I don't want to eradicate them, I just want them to not eat everything.

Since we added a lot of mulch and wood in our garden (to feed the soil and enhance it), we have more insects than ever (centipedes, woodlouses, ground beetles, ladybugs...) but we also have more slugs of course
We also have a lot of different mushrooms.
Slugs are not an enemy, they are a part of the whole system. They are in fact a big help in the garden, they decompose organic mater, they suppress pathogenic fungus and reduce garden diseases. I don't want to eradiacte them.

Next year I will grow more plants in my tobacco and vegetable beds to feed the slugs, and I will transplant my plants only when they are a bit stronger (slugs love young and fragile plants, as much as dying plants).
It's all about experimenting, time will tell.

@Knucklehead : the pictures were taken during the night, while we were hunting for them (see picture bellow)

We have different kind of slugs, here are some small bright ones on our chards :



And now a plate filled with slugs, from one hunt (not for the faint of heart) :



I am really happy to see more insects and more life in my garden, it means that it's alive.

 

[deluxestogie]

That final photo is just amazing. That's a lot of environmental protein!

A curious thing about slugs is that they cannot move across pure copper, or even a fine-mesh copper screen. The electrical pulses that work their muscles will short-circuit through the mucus, when they attempt to move onto copper. Some pots and planters are made with a thin band of copper half-way up the exterior of the pot wall, to keep slugs away. I'm not sure how one might use that knowledge in a garden bed. But with such a heavy burden of slugs, you might look into using a narrow band of thin, copper foil around each seedling stem.

Bob

 

[Radagast]

Ew

 

[GreenDragon]

Have you tried using beer traps?

 

[Oldfella]

Hello Anton, the lonely Kasturi seedling is still alive, but it grows VERY slowly... here is a picture of it today :
I hope it will continue to grow correctly.
I will grow it in a pot, so I can save it (put in the house) even if it is late to flower.

View attachment 30876

Hey Charlie
I do believe that my tiered old eyes can detect some possible new seeds sprouting. Check out the area around the one that is growing. Like me you may have to use magnifying glass.
I hope that I am right. Good luck with that.
Oldfella

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

Have you tried letting his people go?

 

[Oldfella]

Have you tried letting his people go?

Can't. They're all quarantined.
Armed guards and everything.
Still wait and see. OR!!! "DID ONLY ONE SEED GET SOWEN?" Hmm maybe.
Oldfella

 

[Charly]

Have you tried using beer traps?

Beer traps work, but they have too many cons :
- they atract the slugs from all the neighborhood
- they trap a lot of other intersting creatures
- and the worst : it wastes toooo much beer !

 

[Charly]

Hey Charlie
I do believe that my tiered old eyes can detect some possible new seeds sprouting. Check out the area around the one that is growing. Like me you may have to use magnifying glass.
I hope that I am right. Good luck with that.
Oldfella

Well, we are a few weeks after the kasturi picture, no other sprout made it, I still have the lonely plant, growing (if we can say «growing») VERYYYY slowly... but it is still alive !
I will soon need magnifying glasses, but not today

 

[plantdude]

Thanks for the advice, but I try to use little to no chemical at all.

Metaldehyde is dangerous not only for slugs, but also for a lot of animals, so I won't use it.

The only chemical I use is "Ferric phosphate", which is relatively "safe", to try to reduce the slug pressure (because each year in early spring we have a LOT of slugs... and a few snails).
As I said, I don't want to eradicate them, I just want them to not eat everything.

Since we added a lot of mulch and wood in our garden (to feed the soil and enhance it), we have more insects than ever (centipedes, woodlouses, ground beetles, ladybugs...) but we also have more slugs of course
We also have a lot of different mushrooms.
Slugs are not an enemy, they are a part of the whole system. They are in fact a big help in the garden, they decompose organic mater, they suppress pathogenic fungus and reduce garden diseases. I don't want to eradiacte them.

Next year I will grow more plants in my tobacco and vegetable beds to feed the slugs, and I will transplant my plants only when they are a bit stronger (slugs love young and fragile plants, as much as dying plants).
It's all about experimenting, time will tell.

@Knucklehead : the pictures were taken during the night, while we were hunting for them (see picture bellow)

We have different kind of slugs, here are some small bright ones on our chards :

View attachment 31562

And now a plate filled with slugs, from one hunt (not for the faint of heart) :

View attachment 31563

I am really happy to see more insects and more life in my garden, it means that it's alive.

That's an impressive catch. When my kids were little we watched the animated movie Flushed Away and the slugs could sing in the movie. When we would see a slug I would sing faintly (la la la) and for a few years I had the kids convinced that it was actually the slugs singing. You would have had a choir
I like Bobs idea of a copper collar of some sort. I know direct contact with copper tends to kill roots, I don't know if it would harm shoots or leaves though. It would be an interesting experiment to see what a small band of copper around the plant, or even just circleing the ground around the plant but not touching it, would do. My slug problems are fortunately pretty minimal right now or I would give it a try.

 

[Oldfella]

O

That's an impressive catch. When my kids were little we watched the animated movie Flushed Away and the slugs could sing in the movie. When we would see a slug I would sing faintly (la la la) and for a few years I had the kids convinced that it was actually the slugs singing. You would have had a choir
I like Bobs idea of a copper collar of some sort. I know direct contact with copper tends to kill roots, I don't know if it would harm shoots or leaves though. It would be an interesting experiment to see what a small band of copper around the plant, or even just circleing the ground around the plant but not touching it, would do. My slug problems are fortunately pretty minimal right now or I would give it a try.

I'll have a look around the patch in the morning and see if I can find a self sower. If I see slug damage I'll try the copper trick and see what happens.
Oldfella

 

[deluxestogie]

Five copper pennies (1 cent Euro) laid on the soil should make a nice perimeter for a small tobacco stalk.

Bob

 

[plantdude]

Five copper pennies (1 cent Euro) laid on the soil should make a nice perimeter for a small tobacco stalk.

Bob

Just saw the headline there is a change shortage in the US... Now I know where it is all going

 

[Charly]

Five copper pennies (1 cent Euro) laid on the soil should make a nice perimeter for a small tobacco stalk.

Bob

Excellent idea, but I am not rich enough.
5 cents x 200 plants = 10 euros !
The neighborhood will think I am made of money !
I imagine myself at the bank : « I would like 1000 coins of 1 cent please »

 

[plantdude]

Excellent idea, but I am not rich enough.
5 cents x 200 plants = 10 euros !
The neighborhood will think I am made of money !
I imagine myself at the bank : « I would like 1000 coins of 1 cent please »

Maybe you can sell some of the slugs for beauty products and become a millionare. People will buy anything. My wife buys these packaged Japanese face masks that have different main ingredients like cucumber, aloe, royal jelly, etc... One of them is snail. I'm not kidding, it actually contains snail mucus! She swears the snail face masks actually work the best for moisturizing her face. She didn't appreciate it when I told her she just needs a little butter and garlic and she would taste like escargot when I kiss her.

 

[Oldfella]

Maybe you can sell some of the slugs for beauty products and become a millionare. People will buy anything. My wife buys these packaged Japanese face masks that have different main ingredients like cucumber, aloe, royal jelly, etc... One of them is snail. I'm not kidding, it actually contains snail mucus! She swears the snail face masks actually work the best for moisturizing her face. She didn't appreciate it when I told her she just needs a little butter and garlic and she would taste like escargot when I kiss her.

Careful there.
Oldfella

 

[Charly]

I already heard about the snail mucus masks, I have to check if it works with slug mucus too

I could become RICH !!!

 

[plantdude]

I already heard about the snail mucus masks, I have to check if it works with slug mucus too

I could become RICH !!!

It's even worse than I thought, it's not just a face mask anymore now it's face cream that she uses every night.

97.5% snail mucus. If that works with slugs a person could just grab a hand full of them and apply directly - they wouldn't even need to worry about any scratchy shells.

Charly, with a little research and a good marketing campaign you may have your future business out there munching on your plants as we speak

 

[Charly]

Too much to do, too little time...
I have not updated my grow blog a lot this year... sorry for this.

So a quick update.

This summer was again hot and dry (about no rain for some month, dry enough to kill the grass...).
The plants seemed to have liked it even if they did not grow a lot, I did not water them a lot and I think it delayed their growth, but the plants are fine nonetheless.
I am very happy with the mulching because this year I had very few plants infected by viruses (only 3 plants on 193 ! and a few ones in the rusticas, without mulch).
The more I add mulch on the soil, the healthier my plants are, that's a very happy thing for me !

I begun harvesting later than usual (about 1 full month later than last years), all my plants are smaller than usual , I don't know if it's the lack of water ? or something else ?

Some picts of my plants :






















I said we had no rain for I don't know how many month, and now the weather changed dramatically :

 

[plantdude]

Nice plants. Judging by the shorter stature and slightly smaller leaf size I think you are correct about the dry conditions affecting them a little. I bet those will be some very flavorful leaves though