by John Ledbury

Created on: August 22, 2010   Last Updated: January 09, 2011

Using nature to keep the slug population down, is the safest and most efficient way for non-toxic control of slugs.Using chemicals may clear a few slugs away each day, the fact is the local slug population will still be breeding and seeking food. Once you start using anti-slug chemicals, you will have to continue using them, putting wildlife and your pets at risk of death by poisoning.

Slugs do have predators. The object is to do everything possible to encourage the slug predators into your garden.   Amongst them are a list of birds that include thrushes, starlings, Robbins, rooks, and seagulls. Then there are a few beetles including the ground beetle (carabis) which is resident in most domestic gardens. While not in every ones garden or yard, hedgehogs frogs and toads also eat slugs.

Start by removing all dead plant foliage from your yard or garden. This will remove likely hideaways for slugs. Starting a composting box for this foliage will be useful in the future.

Encourage frogs and toads into your garden with a mini pond. Something as small as about 2' x 2' and a few inches deep, will do the job. If you have young children a pond of this size is easy to make safe for children to look at but not harm themselves. I used an old bath which I sank into the ground. Water Lillie's and other water plants were planted in their pots under water on bricks to give different levels and hiding places for frogs and toads. The whole thing was covered with a strong metal mesh cover that people could safely stand on. The mesh was of a suitable gauge that allowed frogs etc to enter and leave the pond. Frogs and toads will seek out your pond and make their home in it. Definitely, no fish must be allowed into the pond, they eat frogs spawn.

To encourage slug eating birds, putting up a couple of bird feeders will help bring them in. Some of the seeds from these feeders will end up on the ground, these and any that can be added to, will entice the ground feeder birds. If there are none in the garden, adding Berberris, Holly, Crab Apple etc will also encourage more birds in.

While this natural way of slug control will make the garden virtually slug free, it will take about a year before the results can be seen, but that is a small price to pay for something that is totally safe and natural. The added bonus of course, is that Hostas can be grown with confidence.

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