Small kitchen garden lazy in the Ardennes

[Did67]

My goji is still small but very spicy, in the outer hedge,

Plan at least two good meters of grip !!!

[Christophe]

Ralalal it starts badly ... my cucurbits have been attacked for 2 days (it is raining) by (luckily babies) slugs ... it has not stopped raining since yesterday morning ... A little sun should logically resolve the situation .

[Did67]

I also had attacks on my different plantations (cabbage, celery, mainly different kinds of salads).

With variable damage: some cabbage or celery lost (but as I wrote elsewhere, I plant 100 or 150, then 3 lost, that does not "count"); a few curls on one board, but about half of the uncurled escaroles on another ... There, it "warmed" me!

What I observe:

b) the previous one plays a role: my significant damage is in the plot where I had left + thrown away what was left of the cabbage; the rather woody stems, but hollow, are an excellent marker for slugs ... Elsewhere, under a "simple" layer of hay, it seems much less worse ...

c) little success with Ferramol: do some species not like it? prefer very tender vegetables? Likely. Is the action too slow so that a slug descent is fatal for a small plant, even before the Ferramol "stuffs" the slug (the Ferramol does not kill; it cuts the appetite; slugs bury themselves to die). Possible.

d) finally, my "fight" is quite simple and not very "exhausting": I did, 3 days in a row, at nightfall, a trip and ... I picked up by hand. We think there is a plethora of them, but sometimes it's a "medium", red slug that gets embedded on a foot and plows it down to the core. Just one. You catch it and the problem is solved. There may also be a hatching of tiny snails, but they are too small to "shave" a foot; they "eat away" the surface of the leaf, without being able to take the entire thickness ... There, it is more boring to collect.

So 3 rounds and the big part (95%) of the problem is solved, at the end of the news ... (or after a hot storm rain). They're outside, usually on top (assholes!). When you have a cabbage stalk attacked and you don't see one, it is worth bending down and "scratching" around the plant; sometimes she's just level with the hay ...

It cost me, come on, 3 times 10 minutes at maximum ... For 4 or 500 m² (but I focus on the areas where I planted; but all the same: about 300 salads, 100 cabbage , 70 celery, 150 leeks ...).

Today, noon, for a ride: it's raining hard ... And I still find a lonely one, during this little observation tour!

I had already had the same experience last year. I was surprised that in such a short time, I had seriously reduced the population ... But it's the same this year ...

Conclusion: gardening living soil is gardening WITH slugs. Provide 30% losses, the share of maintaining slugs, to feed the auxiliaries (enemies of slugs) so that they settle down and stay ... So when you want to have 4 courgettes, you plant 6. Knowing that 2 will be the "share of the angels". We must give up the idea: I plant 4 zucchini when I want to have 4!

Another note: "bare ground" gardeners also have slug problems, but they use an easy weapon - metaldehyde, very effective, cheap! But we must see all the consequences of this "system": hoeing, digging, the environmental effects ... So not to envy their apparent "absence" of slugs - which is not disastrous eradication!

[Did67]

A little sun should logically resolve the situation.

No, no: they will "work" at night! During the day, you will find them in the hay which surrounds the feet, at the level where the humidity is maintained.

So: household glove and pick up ...

[Christophe]

Ahh so if I understand correctly the slugs are not really the friends of the lazy vegetable garden? Or rather if from the vegetable garden yes but not from the lazy ...

[Did67]

Too many slugs at the wrong time (that of the plantations) and while the auxiliaries are not yet active enough (the beetles, the staphylins): no!

Afterwards, I maintain a small population, to feed the auxiliaries (almost every time I harvest a salad, I have one or two slugs, all year round, with a few "holes" of no importance ° In my videos, we see that all my cabbage leaves have "holes", because of some slugs that coexist with my crops ...

A priori, this hunt will be the only one. Afterwards, everything will return "naturally" to order.

I also maintain martyr plants, at the end of the row or in the "hedgehog's garden", half a dozen meters away (hedgehog who always snubs me !!!!!): Eryngium (blue thistle), dahlia (I hate dahlias but I only cultivate them for that), sunflower (I love sunflowers at the bottom of the garden), hostas (indifferent to me) ...

Everything is in the right "proportion" ...

[Christophe]

Ok it is well noted

Thank you Didier!

[Julienmos]

other outing gastropods, after today's heavy rains ...

[sicetaitsimple]

Another note: "bare ground" gardeners also have slug problems, but they use an easy weapon - metaldehyde, very effective, cheap! But we must see all the consequences of this "system": hoeing, digging, the environmental effects ... So not to envy their apparent "absence" of slugs - which is not disastrous eradication!

I am not a defender of metaldehyde or bare soil, but I do not understand the association ... You can very well be in bare soil and use ferramol.
Personally, I have already explained it many times, it is more my way of doing things: I uncover the cover when sowing or planting, and I put it back (or not, it depends, not on radishes for example !) as soon as the plant has acquired sufficient vigor. And if it is a delicacy for slugs, ferramol during the period of first growth. In short, I am in "rotating bare soil" perhaps two months a year on average and in biomass cover the other ten months!

The punishment is of course a development of weeds more consequent in the strip discovered, and generally watered taking into account the seedlings and plants, but that is managed I find quite easily with a weeding before putting back the mulching.

Another advantage recently discovered: no metaphysical questions about the phytotoxicity of the cover vis-à-vis young plants!

[Ahmed]

Care should be taken in qualifying phytotoxicity at the juvenile stage, since this aspect is still poorly understood and may depend on factors not well known to date. In addition, the evaluation of the impact of this phytotoxicity remains to be quantified in order to determine its gravity: for the moment this temporary phenomenon seems quite limited in its negative effects.