Simple Guide to Slug Control | How to Effectively Deal with Slugs in the Vegetable Garden 

Thank you for watching! I'll leave it up to you to decide what to do with the slugs afterwards😉 Saturday's video is going to be all about intercropping and I look forward to seeing you again then.

I put planks down in the walkways and each morning have the chickens walk around the garden with me. I turn over the planks and they have a feast, rolling the slugs in sand, like it's powdered sugar. They get a snack and I get the best eggs and a pest free garden!

I would add the use of a pond can be super effective in limiting slugs and snails. Frogs and toads will pick off more slugs and snails than I could each night with a torch.

PREVENTION: 1:25 Keep Grass Short; 2:18 Tidy Up Keeping Things off Ground; 2:51 Place Containers Away from Salads and Brassicas; 3:14 Only Water in Early Morning; 3:39 Weed Often; 4:25 Transplant Salad/Brassica Seedlings when they Are Large; 5:17 Create Physical Barriers with Spiky Objects. ATTACK: 6:41 Identify Slug Hot Spots (e.g. Salads vs. Onion); 7:06 Catch & Collect Technique w/ Cardboard; 8:02 Plank on Side of Raised Bed; 8:19 Torch (Flashlight) & Bucket; 8:50 Slug Pub w/ Beer; 9:05 Trap w/ Orange/Grapefruit. 9:36 MAINTENANCE: Planks on Side of Raised Beds Hot Spots, Water Only in Morning & Keep Grass Short.

Great tip about the barrier using gorse. I've recently found out that not all slugs eat your salad and are in fact heroes. The leopard slug, eats other slugs yay,!, and the green cellar slug only eats decaying vegetation. The RHS are conducting a survey about slugs in your garden, and I have these two goodies, as well as the baddies 😔 ☺

Hi Huw, I would love to see an episode or two on storage of produce, do you store things in a shed/outbuilding? If you harvest all your onions or potatoes in July, how do you store? Also overwintering storage of things that needed to be harvested in the autumn, but will keep through the winter?

the gorse idea is genius

My fav slug control are the same with which help me sleep: birds. Small singers like robins eat slugs and snails and help me fall a sleep, they feed my plants with the slugs they ate and I give them food.

Another suggestion is to save your egg shells and when you accumulate a bag or so put them in the oven to dry and cook for about 15 minutes. After that pound them into smaller pieces then put the crushed eggshells around your seedlings. The slugs do not like to cross this barrier. It worked for me last summer. And the egg shells are good for the garden.

Hi Huw from NZ. I'm a novice and stumbled across your channel a couple of months ago. I really appreciate all your tips. This slug one is another goody. This is the first time I've looked at comments; there are useful tips from others too. Cheers

You gave me another idea. I have raspberry plants that will need pruning back after all the berries are picked over the next few weeks. Think I'll try stapling them to the tops of the planks around my raised beds and see if they like crossing that barrier. Lots of sharp pointy thingmes to negotiate.

I have a slighly different approach, as I don't like a "clean" garden. I use torch and bucket to collect them at nights. I collect most of them from weeds that I have pulled out and piled up during the day. They LOVE pulled-out weeds much more than the planted stuff. That way, I never have to keep the grass low, nor water only in the mornings. We have reduced slugs-induced damage dramatically, I am very happy about it.

Great tips. Thank you. I have lots of rosemary bushes and cut lot’s of sprigs put them all round my garden beds. Stops slugs, snails and even cats. When the rosemary dries up even better.

I'm planting a few onions in every bed. So far I've had slug damage a couple feet away from the onions but none closer. For example, I planted 3 zuchinni hills and put a row of 8 red onion starts between each hill...no slug damage! I also have 3 areas of peas, the 2 that are right up against a mass of last year's yellow onions going to seed are completely free of slug damage. But the 3rd group of peas are about 30" from any onions and they are getting hit pretty hard. In my lettuce bed I put a single row of onions along one long side and those greens are pest free, the other side of the bed is not too bad, but definitely has some damage. I think next year I'm going to have a row of onions on the outside edge of every bed.

Thank you for the tip to use gorse as a barrier, its a new one to me and I've been growing fruit and vegetables for i excess for 40 years

Huw, I saw a man on YT that hooked up 2 parallel wires near the top portion of his raised bed and with a 9 volt battery, let the slugs get zapped when they tried to pass over the wires. He was actually training the slugs to go elsewhere for their meals. He hasn't had another slug problem with his garden. He did demonstrate the coffee grounds, beer traps, and crushed eggshells, etc to see which worked best, but the slugs always seemed to win by getting thru whatever barrier was put before them. Then he decided on the battery idea and by golly it worked each and every time. Just a thought...

This year I had a severe slug problem. They actually attacked several of my onions...a first! Thank you for this video, Huw! Lots of great info here.

I've fought against these for years using all sorts of ideas and until the last few years manual night collection seemed the best. With having two ponds and no way to attack incoming slugs in the neighbours garden this seemed a battle I would never win. About 4 years ago a fencing contractor brought and used rough sand to make cement for the fence posts. I noticed afterwards that this contained a population of Devil's coach horse beetle which intrroduced them to my garden. With every year since there are fewer and fewer slugs, today, i don't see them.

I also use sacrificial leaves, outside cabbage, lettuce leaves and rhubarb leaf trimmings and it works even better than the cardboard

I've used wet white bread to keep slugs away from my plants. They feast on the bread in large numbers and I find very little damage elsewhere.

Your duck video was inspiring, so I bought some Khaki Campbells. They work great when there is nothing in the beds or when plants are well established. They spent a few weeks in the garden area in March and they are back out with the chickens until the summer garden grows up a bit more. Insect damage has been sparse so far. I use a flashlight and a bucket in the greenhouse and feed the slugs I find to the ducks.

I always use the beer trap method works 90% for me. I also use a few paving slabs lent against something. There are loads under it in the morning especially when it's been raining.

Just bought a copy of your book and it's terrific. Thanks for your incredibly helpful videos. Best wishes!

I watched this video today and I’m implementing all 3 methods today! Ty for making it clear and concise!

Thanks for all of your advice. Very thorough and a good explanation too. Easy to understand

Sadly with the recent dry years not only all of the slugs around here (lower Saxony, Germany) but also the snails have died.. in 2017 we still had these giant snails and all sorts of colourful ones. I always used to dislike these guys for obvious reasons but now that they are gone it's just sad and the hedgehogs have less to eat too! :(

So at 7:33 this is a *great* tip - I have recently been putting pallet pails rested on the surface between plants and finding *loads* of slug every 2-3 days! Thanks!

Really useful ideas! Very different from the regular slug-prevention ideas in most other videos 👍🏼

Great video with some awesome tips! Thank you so much, was able to immediately implement these - already found a slug hiding right next to one of my herbs he decimated!!

Really useful tips, especially the gorse and watering in the morning. Thanks

Great techniques to control; slugs. Thanks for sharing the knowledge Hugh

Love the no-cost approach. One may also transplant a few mugworts (potted) around the area to repel them.

Great video to the point and direct . Good advice which is what people won't. Thanks 👍

I love your videos.. They are excellent & it's always great to see your flourishing garden. Thank you so much

Thanks for the tips. I use citrus peels where’s I’ve seen lots of damage. I’ll change the time I water and see if that helps.

I find rings made out of old plastic soft drink or other plastic bottles with a some vaseline applied around the top or middle of the ring prevents slugs and snails from eating seedlings. they won't crawl over the vaseline and because it's waterproof it won't wash off in rain

Thanks Huw 🤞🤞🤞🤞 I really hope this year there are less slugs than last year! Will definitely try your methods

Thanks for your advice... it is awesome! I do put beer in shallow dishes ....they like it!

Another video packed with great advice, thanks Huw!

You are my favourite gardener on RU-vid. I love your practical advice and wonderful video editing. Great job! love from Canada

In the past I have created an electric fence with a 9v battery. Create 2 separate loops about 1/2 inch apart around your raised bed and attach one to the positive terminal and the other to the negative. When the slug touches both he closes the circuit and gets fried.

Thanku so much, one of my main mistakes is watering in the evening which I will not do anymore, I also recently started putting food containers on the ground to prevent them eating my plants and now I have now learned not to do that. This video has cheered me up because I was getting abit disheartened as I am growing many fruits and herbs but also have a centre patch where I grow my general plants and they keep eating them

I’m new to gardening so this was really helpful thanks x

When he said "You need to get a torch", did anyone else picture a flame thrower? :-D

Although slugs will come up out of the soil of course , you will often find that in a garden or allotment they often make their way to your crops or flowers from certain places such as a hedge , a sheltered area or a patch of unused ground etc where there is longer grass , anywhere like this . If you can find out from which direction they are generally coming from ,then there is an easy very reliable way to stop most of them . All you do is dig a little trench all along the line they are coming from so that they have to crawl down this dip before they get to your crops . The trench may have to be fairly long but it only needs to be up to 6 inches deep and about 8 or 9 inches across . It doesn’t take very long at all to scrape this out even if it is fairly long . Then what you do is you fill it up , the entire length with grass clippings , chopped up weeds , dandelions are especially good and then give it a good soaking with one or two watering cans so that it is thoroughly soaked . The organic matter will start to break down and rot very quickly in summer because of the heat and dampness . Slugs and snails just love this habitat as they actually prefer eating rotting material usually . They will enter this trench and then not bother at all about coming up the other side to look for anything else . They will have all they want in this little dip and will happily stay in it night and day . All you have to do is top it up with new vegetation every now and then and importantly water it with a can almost every day you are there . It is very easy to do . You can then either leave the little blighters in there or do what I do and pick them all out every now and then putting them in a container and ‘ relocate’ them elsewhere . I will not kill them so I simply take them somewhere , a fair distance to some woods or waste ground and release them there . I used this method last year where they were coming out of my gooseberry/ raspberry area and attacking my runner beans causing a lot of damage . Once the trench was in place , virtually all damage to the beans stopped overnight . It worked fantastically . Of course you will still get the odd errant slug or snail that likes to do its own thing by camping down amongst your crops but by and large this method works almost 100 per cent for migrating molluscs . ( In many situations most of your crop damage is due to this ) If you go out at night with a torch on a wet evening after some rain you will very often find that the majority of the slugs and snails are coming in from a certain direction/ area . So this is when you might want to start thinking about the trench method , especially if you have a well cultivated area that is being attacked .

Hue, I had a big problem after using snail bait- it just drew more to my yard.☹️ I found that slugs Love the cat and dog dried food pellets. Each night they'd come and eat the leftovers and leave my plants alone. Only problem was washing the plates, so I put some out on cardboard, and go out at night a a specific time 10: - 10:30, while they're still sliding around and catch them all. I caught loads of them till eventually only little babies came out. So I figured I got most of them. I've not had a problem this season, until last week my Amaryllis buds where destroyed in one night. 😠 So I left some cat food and caught only one slug - the biggest daddy I've ever seen!! I had not been putting out pellets this spring because I hadn't notice any problems, and didn't want to attract them from afar just incase it is the smell that draws them from a neighbour's yard or something. Also I once heard of a guy who sprayed 1 ts bicarb and 1/4 to 1/2 cup of Glysterene mouthwash (any flavour apparently, but he used mint) That mixed in 1 litre of water was sprayed in onto his plants to keep the mosquitoes away. He and family liked sitting outside every summer evening. He said the added Big Bonus was it also kept slugs away for 2 years!! I've tried that before and worked amazingly well. Only thing is it needs regular reapplication particularly in early spring /summer. Once a week worked for me, but I wasn't sitting outside. It worked the entire year, long after I stopped spraying. .no mozzies- 👍 nor did I notice slug damage! So now I'm going to try it again this year. I hope the measures I've given are accurate, as it was a while ago, but I think that's about what I used. Maybe you can give it a try and make a video of it to help your followers. Good luck to all with the snail deterring endeavours. 👍 😄

Fantastic information. Thanks Huw!

I have used something called slug bread - flour, yeast, a little sugar, and enough water to make a soupy, sticky mixture that I put in a discarded food container. It really reduced slug pressure in my tomato bed in Tennessee. Apparently, slugs are drawn to the yeast.

I use copper adhesive tape around my planters which works really well. The slugs don’t go over it.

I have tried the going out on a damp night with a torch and it works well. I don't use a bucket, I use a pair of scissors. Also slug nematodes and copper rings can help a lot.

This is very helpful information, thank you.

Hi Huw, just wanted to say that when I go out slug and snail collecting at night I find them in my onion stems. They are a go to for me now as I know I will always find some

I agree wholeheartedly with going out in the evenings just as its getting dark, headtorch on and picking up the wee slimey beings. I have been doing this every alternate night for 2 weeks and their population has completely slumped, phenomenally successful. I would add, it is by far my least popular gardening job 🤢

Hi Huw, managed to miss this last year, but will definitely try this year. Last year I resorted to Nematodes with a bit of success, however using your ideas I migh be more successful, and cheaper for sure.

*I agree that the go out at night 3 days in a row will make a difference. I don't like killing them, so I just release them near my neighbour's garden (no i'm kidding^^) I put them at theother side of my garden, as far away as possible ^^ *Also I have slugs that looks like leopard (with dark spots on them) they can get quite big; UNLESS they're on a plant, which rarely happens in my garden, they're generally on the ground, eating things in it and they eat other slugs eggs and small baby slugs. So I let them do their jobs. *I've also heard a professional gardener (and other who said this actually saved their organic business once they applied this) in permaculture saying that you tend to have more slugs if your terrain as more azote than carbons. so remember to keep those elements in balance, especially if you do permaculture with hay or things like that on the ground around your crops. *I have quite a lot of hedgehogs too, so I don't pick the smallest slugs, as I don't want them to die in the process and it leaves food for the hedgehogs so they come back every night in the garden to help keep the slug population in check. *on another note : be careful with the "hedgehog friendly chemical slug repellent" that you can buy in stores* . Several wild-life centers specialized in saving hedgehogs told me that it's less dangerous that the other slug repellent, but it gives them a very bad stomachache and diarrhea, so they can't put on weight to resist the winter properly. It also kills the young ones as they're too small and get dehydrated too quicklyt. so this is not a good idea to use those. As for the beer. put it in a way that hedgehogs can't get the drown slugs in the container with the beer, because they will get drunk (^^) then won't go into hiding in time or will fall asleep in dangerous places, belly's uncovered where they can be attacked by their predator as well as having flies lay their eggs on them and thus get killed by the maggots eating them alive. (seeing a hedgehog during the day is not normal and it's dangerous for them)

Thanks Jack Whitehall, good guide 👍

Lol... "Bring a torch"... I thought he was going to burn them! 😌

I dont know why but for my small garden i found out that soft woodchips the light kind work great in two ways. One is that slugs dont get a grip somehow and stopped getting near my plants and secondly it prevents weeds from growing because they dont get any light. Great video once again.

Great tips as always

I hate to kill anything including insects but lately slugs and snails has damaged all my lovely plants and this is a brilliant ideas to control slugs and snails naturally. You got a new subscriber, thank you for such a great video.

Aha! I'd been using brambles to keep cats from digging in my raised beds ... didn't think of using it as a slug barrier!

That is a brilliant video. I will surely apply these methods to minimize slug 🐌 in my garden. Warm greeting to you from Canada 🇨🇦

The slug population in my garden is my number 1 issue. Sadly, many of your tricks aren't possible for me to perform because my garden has limited space, so keeping pots and beds apart or keeping a distance between yummi plants and those uninteresting to snails isn't possible. My garden has a lot of shrubbery, dead wood rotting an place, stone walls and moist corners full of moss. I don't want to change that because I'm trying to be a refuge for biodiversity within a sea of very tidy gardens surrounding mine. I've made my garden comfortable fir all kinds of helpful creatures who eat slugs. There are plenty of hedgehogs, toads, newts, frogs, ground beetle, birds living here and also leopard slugs and burgundy snails, who both eath slug eggs. However, I'm still plugging an average of 300 - 400 slugs off my vegetables ecery night during growing season. It is very frustrating at times. I hope that in time, my garden will gain a natural balance between slugs and slug eaters, but I'm in year 4 now, and the balance is really taking its time. :(

Huw, great useful video. Could you do a video on tips for sowing seeds. A bit stuck and my seeds aren’t germinating. Thanks for all of your great videos and warm wishes.

Great tips, thanks for sharing

I've had good results with crunched-up egg shell.

Thanks for the video. It's amazing how much damage just a few slugs can do. We've had some pretty significant damage to our rhubarb (after seeing this video I know that's no surprise to you!) this year. I tried your overturned wood plank and didn't catch any, but I did catch 3 in a couple of overturned flower pots. Just eliminating those 3 slugs has really made a difference in helping the rhubarb completely spring back! I'm going to try the saucer of beer soon (if I notice any further damage). How are your tomatoes doing this year so far? (I switched from a new hybrid variety I experimented with last year that looked amazing as a plant, but didn't produce much fruit back to Brandywine this year. I'm thinking I can just harvest some of those Brandywine seeds at the end of the season if I like the production.)

My great gran used to plant marigolds around lettuce as a bit of a sacrificial offering to slugs and to attract pollinators. She also blew up a haggis and stank up the kitchen for a week. So, there's that.

Great video,here in N.C.

Another piece of very useful information. Thank you Huw for sharing the knowledge

Thank you Huw! I've really enjoyed your videos - your advice is really useful. This year, mg second at growing veggies, has been a disaster for me. The slugs have ate nearly all of each batch of seedlings I planted out. I'm on my 4th attempt now - and will wait until the young plants are alot bigger before I plant them out! What an idiot I was! Very good advice of yours, thanks. Can you tell me, please, what you do with all the slugs you collect at night, under your planks etc? God bless. 🙏😘

This year I will try to do something completely different. Chop and drop heavily. The idea is to give them an alternative food source and have a this kind of species of slugs that eat more decomposed material rather than fresh. And as well create a more slug predator area.

Very dry in my area right now so I have yet to see a slug. New strategies I'm going to use this year are keeping grass short (hubbie' s weed trimmer is going into overdrive), planks, and orange +/or grapefruit halves. I wonder if putting the baits outside of the garden borders keeps the numbers lower inside the borders? Hope my beans survive this year.Thanks and stay safe.

The ducks are the best against any slugs. Easy to deal, only 3 are enough for a large garden. I use them in the GH as well. Besides that, the video is amazing, everything well eplained and pointed :)

Great tips Huw. I setup 9v battery electric fences around the raised beds, which worked quite well.

Using the brambles is such a good idea. I may give that a try. I’ve found sheep’s wool pellets to be quite effective but, I find them pricey.

Thank you for the video. Planting marigolds around the garden perimeter also acts as a deterrent and diatomaceous earth may also be beneficial. Hopefully this won't happen, but if you encounter someone with a gunshot wound, stuffing marigolds in the wound could save he persons life until one reaches a medical facility.

Hedgehogs. If you've a slug problem, I'd think about whether you're making your garden Hedgehog friendly enough. We never have any slugs with our patrolling hedgehog here. (England)

I take care of an urban garden in Chelsea in NYC. Over 100 years old. Slug paradise with all kinds of stacked rocks, and decaying bricks. The slugs loved his basil and Rex begonia. Hiding place control is impossible. I tried the beer method, but slugs are great at making more slugs. This year we are keeping his plants out of reach. Strawberries and basil on the roof of the shed. I’m going to try your barrier method. Do you know anything about urban gardens? I have seen such beautiful things grown in a coffee can on a doorstep.

We have made a home for a few hedgehog families in our garden, they are not only happy eating the slugs, but also have a protected home now. They're getting rare (and endangered) here on mainland Europe.

Excellent! Thank you!

Great video! Thank you!

I’ve gone the no dig this year using woodchip....I’m sure I saw or heard to water the plants not the whole area as they donnt like going over dry areas...ie dry woodchip...I’ve not had as much damage this year so hopefully that’s the reason ...

I decided on wool pellets. The other day I saw birds around my seedlings. I thought they were eating them but they were after the slugs and snails. Living where I do, in the middle of nowhere, slugs & snails are plentiful. Hedgehogs thrive here too so they are also feasting at night too. Last night I actually heard a frog... croaking away so he'll need a pond. That's next LOL

Thank you. A great video.

❤😎 nice clean dry crushed eggshells, finely crushed and spread evenly around the plants. No slugs and no snails. Plus the eggshells feed the plants overtime.

I literally just came from your video on toilet paper rolls for seeds from 8 years ago 😂😂 great job👍 thank you for the tips🌹🏵️🌱🌲🍁

Thank you as I have them eating my French beans and I was going to kill them with salt but not sure if that’s good idea. Now will try your way. 👍👍👍

Using a head torch leaves one hand free to hold the bucket/jar and the other free for picking them up.

I found cantaloupe skins laid down in a shady spot with the fleshy side down will attract slugs from a long way. Then in the day time turn them over an pick the slugs and get rid of them. Turn the rinds over an repeat. They love the smell of melons

🐝Thanks for the great video🌻

used coffee grains works perfectly. i get them from our local cafe. sack fulls...........

Thank you Huw, for these slug tips. I was out in my garden last night and noticed slugs coming up through my decking. I also noticed them coming from in between the upright sleepers in my raised bed. I like the idea of using gorse (if I can find any). Beer traps are popular however, after some research it appears yeast is the ingredient that attracts the slugs therefore, a high content of this is preferable. I have noticed that slugs keep clear of my rocket plants so I am wondering if it may be worth sowing some around the perimeter of my bed as a deterrent. I will give some of your tips a try where possible.

When I transformed our old fountain into a flower pot birds starting visiting our garden more often. They even started using the fountain as toilet (idk how and why, but I only see bird feces in there, while before that they lied kinda everywhere in the garden) and I have only seen one slug. While I usually have at least 10 a week in sight

My strawberry bed is covered in slugs every year. I live in Washington State (USA) it rains constantly and it seems like there is no help for them. I've decided this year too put them in a strawberry tower and see if that helps.

Its hot and wet Monsoon in India now....and my garden is Kingdom of slugs day and night....even in my first floor bedroom. One can not step outside without stepping on slugs. My garden path is shelter for them...also for earthworms. Its also planting time for young saplings. Will definitely try these methods...but really skeptical about the outcome. Thanks for suggestion.

Just spray what you don't want them to eat with coffee works so well

Wonderful thank you

nice tips...thanks

Great video, thank you for all the advices. Does the copper wire method (around raised beds) work?