May gardening tips from Mr. McGregor!

May Gardening Tips

Before you plant out your seedlings and summer bedding plants, or even sow seeds direct outdoors a word or two about slugs and snails and how best to treat them using organic methods. With soil temperatures increasing and the abundance of fresh vegetative growth coupled with frequent rain showers you may start noticing the tell tale signs of slugs and snails in your garden; their slimy trails or a nibbled leaf or two. Rows of newly emerging seedlings can be wiped out over night, especially in wet weather and seedlings could suffer from severe damage that they may never fully recover from, but there is hope!

The most effective approach we have discovered through trial and error is a combined attack. If there’s any bare soil in the garden which we’re about to plant into we apply the biological control Nema-slug. This treatment is applied using a watering can with a coarse rose and contains microscopic nematodes that live in the soil for up to six weeks killing any slugs that are lurking beneath the soil surface (which is where the majority are hiding!). We then also apply organic slug pellets to the soil surface around any vulnerable plants such a newly planted delicate seedlings and their favourites, Hostas. Organic slug pellets unlike their conventional counterparts are harmless to wildlife and breakdown into not toxic compounds in the soil, leaving no trace.