Deter slugs from garden plants with 21p natural pest control

Slugs often top the list of most unwanted garden pests and are widely considered a gardener's worst enemy.

These gastropods don't simply destroy seedlings almost overnight; they have a particular appetite for our prized plants, leaving ragged holes in leaves, flowers, stems, bulbs, tubers and potatoes, while depositing a distinctive silvery slime trail as proof of their unwelcome presence in our gardens.

While these molluscs stay active throughout the year, their numbers become especially noticeable during spring and summer, when there's a wealth of young, tender growth for them to consume.

These garden pests typically burrow into the soil or hide in cool and shaded spots to avoid drying out, and they're most active during the night, particularly when it's damp and mild.

So, how can you tackle these troublesome garden invaders in an effective and natural way?

The solutions are simple.

A BBC Gardeners' World reader survey asking for the most successful slug control techniques revealed some unexpected and unusual methods as leading options.

Garlic drench

Slugs are believed to be repelled by garlic's aroma, so treating the leaves of your beloved plants with a garlic mixture is a quick and effective natural method to get rid of these pests.

To safeguard your plants from an unwanted slug invasion, create your own garlic drench using this simple three-step method.

A four-pack of garlic costs as little as 87p at supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsbury's, equating to roughly 21p per bulb.

To prepare your own homemade garlic drench for repelling slugs, BBC Gardeners' World recommends crushing two whole garlic bulbs and boiling them in a couple of pints of water. Afterwards, strain the liquid and leave it to cool.

Combine one tablespoon of this garlic mixture with four litres of water and pour it over your young plants once a week during the evening.

The garlic drench can also be sprayed directly onto foliage, making sure of complete coverage. Importantly, reapply the mixture regularly, especially after rainfall.

Pick them off after dark

According to the Gardeners' World survey, the most popular approach for eliminating slugs is heading into your garden after dark equipped with a torch, and collecting the troublesome pests from plants with a bucket of salt water at the ready.

Those favouring a more humane approach can collect the slugs in a bucket and relocate them into the wild away from your garden.

The best time for removing slugs is two hours after sunset, which means late evenings during the height of summer. Gloves are recommended.

An efficient method to intentionally attract slugs to a dark and shaded area to make your job easier is by setting out something enticing to them, such as dried cat food, old vegetables, oats, bran, or bread rolls. Once the slugs have congregated, you can easily gather them up.

During daylight hours, search your garden for possible hiding spots, as these pests favour anywhere that's damp, dark, and cool. Looking under plant pots, tread boards on your vegetable patches, pot saucers, and garden furniture are all sensible places to begin.

Create barriers

Setting up barriers is another slug-prevention method that numerous BBC Gardeners' World reader survey participants strongly advocate.

These gastropods find prickly and rough surfaces challenging, so favoured deterrents in your fight against slugs include bark, cocoa chips, sawdust, ash, cat litter, horticultural grit, wool pellets, coffee grounds, and sand.

It's vital to refresh these barriers regularly, and remember that most slugs don't live on the surface but underground in the soil.

Unusual methods

Some unorthodox slug removal tactics recommended by Gardeners' World include using petroleum jelly as a greasy barrier spread liberally around the edges of seed trays and pots, attaching double-sided sticky tape around the rim of pots with the outer side covered in salt, and burying beer traps into the soil using cheap beer.