EP222- Slugs & Snails !!! How To Protect Your Garden and Plants From Slugs & Snails.

Ever found yourself in the garden, glaring at a slimy trail that once was your favorite lettuce? Well, you're not alone in this snail saga gardeners have always had a continuous battle with slugs and snails. This spring is not going to be any different with all the wet weather over the last number of months coupled with a mild winter, slugs and snails will be out in force. 

In this weeks episode, I share the gritty details of the war on slugs.  From clean gardening practices  which help. How to build up your natural garden ecosystem.  We navigate all the treatment methods, like sheep's wool pellets, organic slug pellets, beer traps, copper tape and many more. This episode is about fortifying your garden against slugs and snails, and we're here to equip you with the know-how to do just that.

As the moon climbs high and the garden dims, it becomes prime time for some old-fashioned slug re-homing. Other husbandry includes using terracotta pot hideouts and embracing the ecosystem by welcoming frogs into your garden. We consider slug nematodes and we investigate how to maintain the balance between bug banishing and biodiversity.

To cap it all off, we faced the stark reality of a garden left vulnerable after a slug fest, a truth I've known too well with my once-promising potato crop of 2023. This battle is more a marathon than a sprint, and we're running it together, learning to adjust and adapt our tactics with every season. From the challenges that a warm winter brings on pest problems the following year to doing the things that increase your chances of winning against this garden foe.  This episode is your ally in the ceaseless quest for a thriving, slug-scarce garden. Join me, and let's transform your green space into a no-slugs land.

Pest control modules are also included in my online grow your own food course which has everything you need to grow your own food year after year for a one time fee of just €97. You can purchase here for immediate access to all you need to grow your own this year.
https://mastermygarden.com/grow-your-own-food/

If there is any topic you would like covered in future episodes, please let me know.
Email:  info@mastermygarden.com   

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Until next week  
Happy gardening  
John  

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

How's it going everybody, and welcome to episode 222 of Mastering the Garden podcast. Now, this week's episode is prompted by a number of questions I've got from listeners of the podcast and also from a couple of people who are going through the Grow your Own Food course, and it's in relation to slugs and snails, and I suppose if you were to sit down and to write what is the perfect formula for a high slug population, you would start off by having a mild winter, followed by a wet spring and then warm temperatures, and it's pretty clear that we've had the perfect conditions and it looks like we're building up for quite a high pressure year in terms of in terms of slugs and snails. So it was a very mild winter. The the meaning of that is that that is, that the mild winter doesn't kill off any slugs and snails that you're hanging about. So the population carries through the winter, which sometimes it can reduce quite a lot during really cold snaps, and then the wet spring obviously the more wet, the more moisture, the better for slugs and snails. The wet spring obviously the more wet, the more moisture, the better for slugs and snails. And then high temperatures, and the population just rapidly increases once you get those temperatures. So we're definitely in for a bit of pressure around slugs and snails this spring and summer and it affects us in all parts of the garden and it's a battle that is ongoing between gardeners and slugs and snails.

Speaker 1: 1:54

It's one that has, you know. It comes up so often, you know whether it's on the podcast or messages that I get from listeners. It really is. It's one that just is constant, no matter what goes on, with the odd exception of a really dry snap. You don't hear much about them for a few weeks, but it's never far away from from people's mind. So, with that in mind, you know it can affect you in the vegetable garden in a big way. It can affect your propagation benches, your propagation areas.

Speaker 1: 2:18

At the moment most of them are pretty chock-a-block with plants. Some are getting out into the ground now, which is great, but they are generally speaking quite full, and then, obviously on on the you know the other side you can have things like hostas that are really always a struggle with them, then dahlias. You know there's so many plants that they really go for, and when you look at the type of plants that they go for, it's typically really leafy, tender plants. That's what they're looking for. So, again, hostas wouldn't be dissimilar to, you know, salad leaves. Dahlia is coming up very, very similar to lettuce, you know. So that's the sort of correlations. It's that type of plant that they're after pretty much all the time. Then others, you know, in the vegetable garden, the likes of onions. You know they'll have no slugs, will have no effect on them, but they can be really detrimental on things like potatoes. Then, as well as I can I can vouch for that, having a almost a complete failure of a crop last year down to slug damage. So they really are a challenge.

Speaker 1: 3:22

And and when you look at things like dailies, you can plant your dailia tubers into the ground and as they emerge and as they peep up, that really soft, tender growth as it peeps up over the side, can be just harvested off at ground level by the slugs and snails. And two months later you're wondering where's your dailies? Well, what has happened is that they've continued to try and grow, but every time they have their new growth has been, has been shaved off and eventually they just stop and give up and die. And you wonder where did the dahlias go? Well, they were actually doing their best, but, um, the the slugs and snails just got the better of them. That's a regular occurrence. So just watch for that. That's why, when it comes to dailies and things like that, I would always recommend start them in a pot, get them into, get them into the ground when they're kind of big, and that means that at least they're getting a chance to grow. You'll still have to protect them, you still have to watch, you know, for slugs and snails, but they are getting that start that they don't, that they sometimes don't get if you go directly into the ground. So it's an ongoing battle. It's.

Speaker 1: 4:27

It's one that we covered on the podcast back in the really early days of the podcast could have been like, certainly within the first 10 or 15 episodes. I dread to listen back to those, those earlier episodes these days, but I suppose the general content is still the same. You know there's a little bit of a change in the landscape, I guess, since then. At that time, metalldehyde slug pellets, which you know were very effective, albeit very, very controversial and not so beneficial for, you know, for the ecosystem within your garden. So they're gone off the market now, have been for a number of years, and so that so that's, you know, means the landscape has changed quite a lot there in in in that. What has happened, I suppose, is that other products have come in, some of them reasonably effective, some of them not so much. But we'll talk about them all now in a minute.

Speaker 1: 5:21

But before we talk about it, the that one of the biggest things is, you know, the husbandry and that's the general cleanliness and not leaving hiding places for slugs and snails. That's really really important. So if that's in the vegetable garden, you're not leaving planks of wood hiding around, you're not leaving old pots sitting on the top of the ground, you're not leaving anything. Basically, you know old leaves of brassicas that are finished. So brassicas that are finished, take them out. Because anything that's big, you know, big leaf piece of wood, a pot, something like that, those type, those type things are really ideal hiding and breeding places for slugs and snails and you don't want that.

Speaker 1: 6:03

What you want is that there's going to be slugs and snails present somewhere in your ground. Definitely I find less so in no dig beds but there is going to be slugs and snails. You're present in the area, present in the ground, but at that ground level things like ground beetle are able to eat the eggs of the slugs and snails. So you are getting that, that level of protection. But when you start creating these you know havens for them to breed, then their population just outweighs that, the beneficials. The other thing is that by having that openness, things like trushes can get in and, and you know, eat up some of those. So you have that natural protection.

Speaker 1: 6:42

So you're looking to have good husbandry. You're also looking to build up your own sort of ecosystem. So introducing something like a wildlife pond in your garden I don't actually have one currently, but something like a wildlife pond and if you're in a small garden, that can be something as simple as an oak barrel with some water plants in it and then introduce some frog spawn to it if you want, and that gets you started with having frogs, and they'll be, you know, a huge benefit to the garden. You won't actually see them going about their business, but you will notice that they're going to need a food source and slugs will be their food source. So they're going to be going out eating up the slugs and snails and then you're going to have less pressure in your garden because of that. So husbandry followed by building up your own ecosystem are hugely important. Mulching of beds on a regular basis helps making sure you're clearing away any old hiding places for them. Tidying up the beds good husbandry that's, you know, hugely important.

Speaker 1: 7:42

And then you start to look at what are the, the methods of control, and that is what you're doing. It's, it's. It's an ongoing, continuous control. It isn't something that you can go out today, take an action and that's it. It's solved, because it's something that's going to be a constant. It's something that's going to be always changing, something that's always going to be. Populations are going to increase and decrease based on weather patterns and you know, so on and so forth. So it's, it's not something that that happens. You solve it and then you move on. It's a constant, constant little battle and, with that in mind, the big thing is for you to be consistent with that. The good husbandry and the ecosystem will sort of take the high pressure element out of it so that these elements are right. Your husbandry is good, the ecosystem is good, and so the population of slugs and snails never gets to a point where it's so high that it's a real, real problem. You're sort of you're managing it or you're setting the conditions right to have it be managed by your own ecosystem.

Speaker 1: 8:55

But then, when it comes to control methods, there are lots of them. So we'll go through a few of those now and sort of give the pros and cons, where you might use them, how you might use them and so on. And the first one is useful in sort of container growing and that's copper tape. So slugs will not crawl over copper tape. And this is, you know, first of the barrier type methods. So copper whether it gives them a little shock, I think, when they, when they go to crawl over it, so they they.

Speaker 1: 9:26

The tape is basically it looks for all the world like a sellotape with copper on one side and a sticky back on it, and you run it all around the perimeter of your pot, generally speaking towards the top wouldn't be right on the top edge of it, but just say below the below a collar or just a little bit down from the top of the pot. You have to make it go the whole way around, so 360 or if it's a square pot, the whole way around. You're looking for connection the whole way around and typically then once you have no slugs inside in the pot at the very start, then they're not going to be able to get in there, so they're not going to crawl over that, over that tape, and that's a, that's the the basis of it. Just make sure that there is none in there. So for the first week or so after you put on that tape, just keep a check and make sure there is none in there. The other thing then is if you're using a you know plant, like a hosta say, for example, and the pot is not that big that the hosta leaves don't sort of hang over the edge of the pot and actually make a connection with the pot below the tape, because that acts for want of a better word as a bridge for the slope to slope, to crawl over, and then they're in the pot and then your pot is getting that or your plant is getting damaged and the copper tape at that stage is is only effective at keeping them in there. So that's, you know that's a big thing and make sure it's clean, and then copper tape is really effective, can be used, you know, on bigger, you know bigger beds and so on as well. But again, you're just making sure that there is none in there and, if you know, after you apply your, your copper tape, just check in for the first week or two that there is no activity in there, and once. Once you know that, then the tape will do a really good job. After that.

Speaker 1: 11:06

The next, the next ones, then, are kind of physical barriers. Again, these are, are effective generally to a certain extent, but they're not long term. They're not long term at all, actually. So we're talking about things like sand and grit. So, again, slugs and snails have a smooth, slimy underside. They do not like crawling over anything that's sharp or is going to scratch that underside, so things like sand and grit become a barrier. The thing with any of these, though sand and grit, is that they will start to integrate into the side over time. They will get, you know, moved around. So you're creating, like a, a trail all the way around, about an inch high of the of the barrier, and then they won't crawl over. But it really does need to be sort of consistently applied, and then if you start applying too much, you get too much in the ground. I've seen recently things like oyster shell being sold as a slug and stale barrier, and again, it would be effective in that it wouldn't be the type of surface that a slug or snail would like to crawl over. Having said that, it would again need to be applied regularly because it won't stay, you know, intact in that, in that trail that you put around your plant. So are you going to continue to apply it? And then, you know, becomes quite expensive to to regularly apply it, so not the ideal scenario.

Speaker 1: 12:31

Another method is sheep's wool pellets. These are really effective and they actually have probably more than one benefit. They used to be readily available pre-Brexit, but they're less so now. But there is still, you know, there's still options to get them in Ireland and there's a couple of manufacturers of them actually in Ireland. And what they are is basically, when the sheep are being sheared, the waste material which is the dirty wool. Unfortunately, a lot of the wool now is seen as waste, unfortunately, as I say. But the dirty wool material is taken away, it's ground up, grated in, dried and made into pellets and those pellets basically are applied, as I said, are dry pellets. You apply them around your plant, basically are applied. They, as I said, are dry pellets. You apply them around your plant and then, as soon as they they get some moisture, the, the little hairs from the sheep's wool sort of stand up and that becomes a prickly surface again that the slug or snail won't want to crawl over. They again are the fact that they're, you know, based on sheep's wool and there will be a certain amount of sheep manure in it. They're going to be a fertilizer as well, and they're based on sheep's wool and there will be a certain amount of sheep manure in it. They're going to be a fertilizer as well, and they're going to add organic matter to the soil, so there'll be multiple benefits. However, in a really wet environment, they're not going to last very long on the top of the ground and obviously when we get a lot of rain, it's when the slugs really come out, so they're less beneficial in that scenario. So sheep's wool pellets is a really good option and has multiple benefits, albeit that it's going to be another one where you're going to need to be extremely consistent with it.

Speaker 1: 14:14

And this is a spray that you spray on, but it doesn't actually kill anything and what it's based on? It's based on a calcium. So this calcium is sprayed onto the plant, the plant soaks it in to a certain extent and it puts a little taint on the leaf not so much that you would notice it on your edibles, but enough that the slug and snail doesn't like it and they they go away from it. As I say, a certain amount is soaked in, but if you're getting really high rainfall levels it will wash away to a certain extent again. So it's again one that you would need to apply every couple of weeks to get the maximum control now, especially with seedlings. After a couple of weeks you're going to get them up to a certain stage where it's going to be easier to mine them. It's at those very initial stages that they're, you know, they're a real challenge. So if you can apply it during those first few weeks, get your seedlings strong, get them up to a certain size, then it becomes easier to, you know, to control things after that. But at that very early stage it can be detrimental to to seedlings. So that's another good one.

Speaker 1: 15:15

Then there is things like cabbage collars. Now, these are not the cabbage collars that you use around the base of a brassica for cabbage root fly. These are plant collars that are basically used. You clip them around the stem of the plant. They have a flat, a flat plastic surface. Then when, when it comes up a little bit, it curls out and curls downwards so a slug or snail crawls up along it. Then they have to crawl out and they have to crawl down, but they're not able to get around that corner. I don't find them. I find them a bit gimmicky, if I'm honest. But they are available. I certainly wouldn't use them myself, but again, they're. They're an option, and albeit not a very good one in my opinion. So they're kind of your barriers.

Speaker 1: 16:05

And then you have slug traps and these are these are really effective at catching slugs. So they're they're slug traps, or beer traps as they're known, and they're really effective at capturing slugs and stales. So the principle of it is you have a little chamber with a lid over the top of it. You put some beer into it. No need to put good beer into it and get cheap stuff. I I certainly can think of better things to be doing with beer but just to give you the run through on it. They are really effective. So slugs and snails will crawl into it.

Speaker 1: 16:40

The the one thing to be aware of here is that you can also get beneficials going in there. So sit the trap above the ground surface. So if it's at ground level, things like you know, beetles, centipedes can go into it and obviously they're beneficial in the garden. So we don't want that. Ground beetles particularly will eat slug and snail eggs. So you want them and you don't want the slugs and snails. So sit the traps up high so that they're not level with the ground surface. Uh, the slugs and snails, once they get the whiff or the you know the, the smell of the beer, they will make their way in there and basically they go down into the chamber and they're not able to get back out. And so that's the basis of it. They do work and they will reduce levels. But again, just be really careful that you're not also reducing some of the beneficials in your garden while you're doing that.

Speaker 1: 17:33

And again, it's a constant thing, and if you're talking about a large scale or a large area, it's very difficult because you're going to need a lot of traps to cover that sort of area. You know you're. Really, if you have a standard bed six foot long, two or three foot wide, you're probably going to need two in each of those and that's a lot of and that's, that's a lot, if you know that's a lot of traps. So you might do it around your real problem plants or you might do it in one or two areas where you know you have a lot of pressure, but generally speaking it'll take a lot to do it. Consistency is key as well, so that you know that would need to be refreshed every probably week or so. Emptied out, add in new beer. As I say, I could think of better things to do with beer, but that is an option is slug traps and beer traps. Another option is On the flip side of what I was saying earlier, so saying about the good husbandry and not to leave old pots, old wood or anything like that lying around.

Speaker 1: 18:32

But another thing you can do is you can actually put sort of dummy pots so really good for this are things like old terracotta pots. So you put the terracotta pot sitting on the ground, facing downwards, so the open end down onto the ground and that becomes a perfect haven for slugs and snails. So after a couple of days what you'll find is that those slugs and snails will have crawled up into the pot and it wouldn't be uncommon if you've had you know, if it's a high pressure year to turn over a terracotta pot and find 20, 30 slug snails within that pot after a night. Now, if you do that for a week and you're taking your slugs and snails wherever you take them. That's your choice, however, you decide to discard of them, or where you decide to put them into the neighbor's garden or feed them to your hens or whatever it is that you're going to do with them. After you've discarded of them, you put your pot back again and you repeat the process. You know you will get some on them every night or every morning for a number of weeks, so they'll come out at night time. Then for the daytime they'll be hiding in that pot.

Speaker 1: 19:43

You take away that pot every day. You're going to reduce the numbers, so that's an effective way of doing it. So, while I was saying good husbandry, you do that generally, but this can be used as well. It's physically removed. You can also, you know, physically go out, and I know a lot of people do this. I certainly wouldn't have the time or the or the patience for doing this go out nighttime with my torch and and pick, pick them off certain plants no, not for, not for me, but I know that a lot of people do that and I suppose, if, if you have the time and you have the inclination to do that, it's a highly effective way of doing it because they will be there at night, you will see them with your torch, you will pick them off and you will reduce your numbers. So that's that's a way of doing it for me, if I was doing it.

Speaker 1: 20:27

The pot method is good. You know good heavy pot. Leave it there, let them congregate there in the morning time, take away 20 or 30 of them in a go, do whatever you're doing with them and then repeat the process and over a week or two you'll reduce the number by quite a bit and then that'll take the pressure off. They'll never be gone. There'll always be some there. But you're going to take the pressure to such a level where it's not causing you problems. It's not reducing your flowers, not reducing your veg, and you know everyone starts to have a little bit of benefit as we get later into the year.

Speaker 1: 21:00

I certainly do things like planting in you know, sacrificial plants, so I plant in some that I'll just leave there, let them let them have it. So what ends up happening with that is I'm not going to harvest, that I know I'm not, so I don't mind it getting damaged. Slugs and snails come and do their thing. Then the song trushes will come and attack that or attack them, and by by having that there, you're suppose, creating sort of a sacrificial plant, helps the ecosystem generally and, as a result, you start to reduce your numbers.

Speaker 1: 21:36

So then, moving on to, as I said, the landscape has changed, in that slug pellets, the metalldehyde ones, are gone off the market and what's there now is organic slug pellets. They look the same, you know, physically they look the same. They're still a little small blue pellet or light green pellet in some cases, and they are typically their soil association approved generally, organic growers approved generally, and for it they're made from ferric phosphate and ferric phosphate comes from the soil. So it's a, it's a an element that comes from the soil, is turned into a pellet, it's mixed typically with a pasta type material and when it goes onto the ground you shake it out the same as you used to with. So when it goes onto the ground, it gets soft slugs and snails eat it and then they crawl back down into the ground and they die.

Speaker 1: 22:22

So it is, you know, it does kill, it is a mild poison, but it isn't what people would have talked about years ago, and I still see, you know, in the different Facebook groups and so on, someone puts up a picture of slug pellets are these safe? And then there'll be 200 comments underneath it. It kills dogs, it kills birds, it kills hedgehogs and so on whales, hedgehogs and so on. And while 20 years ago, in the original days of metalldehyde, there could have been, you know, some truth in that message, there isn't these days. There isn't secondary poisoning, it doesn't poison birds and it doesn't poison hedgehogs or dogs or anything like that. Birds typically, you know the nature of them. They don't eat anything that's blue anyway. They're looking for reds, orange, that's, that's what they're looking for. So they see something blue. They don't typically eat it, but if they did, they it doesn't. It doesn't have, you know, toxins in it that would would kill.

Speaker 1: 23:20

Having said that, though, if you use something like that, then you're knocking out an element of an ecosystem. So we heard a couple of weeks ago from tj and batana, where he used sub pellets and then the following year he had, you know, less frogs. So the, the food source for the, the frog is, the is the slug, and so you take out the slug, the food source is gone. So you're better off to have a bit of a balance there. So mentioned, you know, the the fact that you can add the likes of a wildlife pond into your garden. That will increase the frog levels and they'll do that.

Speaker 1: 23:57

But the ferric phosphate, the slug pellets organic slug pellets they're a really effective way of, I suppose, getting on top of a very high pressure area or something that's really area or something that's really challenging or something that's really struggling. So it's the kind of one that you'd use. I would view it a little bit like you know, you go to the chemist. You don't take something every day, but if you have an issue and you want to get something sorted or want to improve something, then you use it and you that's. That's how I would view that.

Speaker 1: 24:30

The other thing that's used quite a lot and this is where a lot of the messages actually came from and around this week was nematodes. So nematodes for slugs are really effective. They're very, very effective. Actually, there's typically only one brand that's available and that's Nemeslug, and there's lots of companies, or there's kind of a few big companies who make nematodes. So these are for fine weevil, for leather jackets, for trips and all other things, and these are commercially used in houses all across the world, and they're really effective at reducing a particular pest. So they're a natural, a natural predator to a pest that might be found in a greenhouse, in a glass house, you know, and these are natural predators. So, in the instance of a vine weevil, you apply the, the nematodes, they seek out the vine weevils, they attack them, eat them, and then your numbers reduce and you get on top of your problem, and the same goes for slugs.

Speaker 1: 25:35

The issue with slugs, though, is that apparently, there's a supply problem at the moment, and that's where these questions have come from. Loads of people ask me where can you get slug nematodes, or is there anyone selling slug nematodes? Or is there anyone selling slug nematodes? And there is very few, and the reasoning I. So, after getting those questions, I kind of did a bit of research into it, and what it turns out is that the, the slug nematode, is actually a really, really slow process to develop. So for something like the Leather Jacket Control or the Vine Weaver Control these big companies they're able to produce these quite quickly in order to match demand at certain times of the year, so it's a quick process, but with the Slug Nebato, it's a really, really slow process. So that's the reason why there's only one kind of supplier in the market.

Speaker 1: 26:28

That's the reason why there's only one kind of supplier in the market. That's the reason why currently there is no supply, because whatever production is there's, there's just basically a gap in it at the moment and there is no availability now, given that things have been so wet and this product is going to be sold all across certain Northern Europe, uk and Ireland, there's going to be, even when it does become available, I don't suspect that there's going to be huge amounts of it because the demand from all areas is going to be quite high. So if you do see it coming available, I would grab it, and if you intend to use it, I would grab it because I don't suspect. You know, just knowing the way these systems work, these things take time and if there is sort of a slow process in the background and then demand comes, you know I can't imagine that there's going to be a lot of available. I'm sure that in time they will. You know these companies will develop systems as such that the product is able to be available. But that's the current issue with it.

Speaker 1: 27:30

From what I'm told, in terms of how effective they are, they're very effective. Again, it's a little bit the same as using the ferric slug pellets you are taking out a food source for, you know, for some beneficials. So if you take out the food source, then completely, which is what a nematode or a slug pellet does. If you take it out completely, then there's a good chance that the following year or later that year you won't have your beneficials that are there. So just be conscious of it. I certainly would have used it last year had I have known that the potato issue that I was going to have so potatoes looking really good Checked them a few few times, actually dug out a few to try when they weren't you know too big, they were just at a nice size. Then a couple of weeks later went back to check and starting to dig them and just really notorious problem just complete wipe out of a crop and very, very frustrating because the crop was, it was very good, the plate was really good, but just wiped out. So, yeah, nematodes, nemislug, very good option, but just not available currently.

Speaker 1: 28:38

So the big, the big message now as we start to close off, is that the, the slug pressure problem, war, whatever you want to call it is never going away. So it is all about constant husbandry, constant building of your own ecosystem, constant monitoring, constant treating or barriers or whatever it is. So it's not something that you do today that solves the problem for the next 12 months. It isn't like that. When it comes to slugs snails, it's not something that you do today that solves the problem for the next 12 months. It isn't like that. When it comes to slug snails, it's pretty much an ongoing, constant to-ing and fro-ing. I suppose it is a war or a battle and no side ever seems to win.

Speaker 1: 29:25

But what you're really aiming for is that you're trying to get to a point where you get more out of the garden than they do and, you know, you get your dailies to flower, you get your your hostas looking good without a million holes in it, you get your seedlings to a point where they're able to, you know, withstand a little bit of an attack and you build up your ecosystem around that. So they're helping you in that constant, constant, ongoing, I suppose, battle or war. And yeah, that's, that's the, the long and the short of it. It isn't something that can be done today and forgotten about. It is a constant, ongoing one.

Speaker 1: 30:02

I know, as I say some people will physically go out and take them away, but are you going to do that every single night, every you know, during those warm, wet months? Are you going to do that every single night, every you know, during those warm wet months? Are you going to do that all the time? The barrier methods, you apply them. Are you going to make sure that, after a heavy rain and that barrier gets dispersed, you're going to reapply it, so any missed gaps that you that you miss, the slug or the snail is just going to be there, ready to go? So that's where you need your ecosystem working right. You need to have your emergency treatments if you need them and you know constant, constant monitoring, constant, constant battling, and when you do that then, as I say, you'll get more out of the garden than they will. I suppose that's the aim. It's something that will.

Speaker 1: 30:46

It won't go away, especially in you know, when you're in an environment or a country like ours, where we get a lot of rain, we get relatively mild temperatures, then it is going to be a constant. When you look at things like no dig gardening and you read, say, from north america and different places and their systems of no dig and they're using things like straw and that. You know, the principle is brilliant, like it's such a brilliant principle for for no dig gardening. Having said that, if you tried to do it here, you would just, it would just be a haven for slugs. So it doesn't. It doesn't work in the same way. So, yeah, there's lots of, there's lots of challenges there. Um, it won't be the only, won't be the only challenge. You know that wet, warm winter that we've had certainly builds up a lot of pests and we probably have to, you know, have a look at some of those and cover some of those in a future episode. But just over the last two weeks particularly, it's been huge amount of questions, both on the grow your own food course and from listeners of the podcast querying and questioning things around around slugs and snails. So I said the best thing to do was to cover it off in an episode and I hope it helps get ready for the ongoing constant battle with them, get ready for the big surge that is definitely imminent, because at the start I said, if you were to create the ideal conditions, it would be a mild winter, followed by a wet spring, followed by warm weather, and we're certainly on course. We have two out of those fields, like this week we're getting the third one of those, and temperatures are coming up, so there's definitely going to be a surge surge over the coming weeks.

Speaker 1: 32:22

For me personally, I certainly can't plant potatoes and have the same issue that I had last year, that was, you know, that was really frustrating to see a really good crop just decimated with them. So I'm going to have to figure out some way. They're hoping that, you know, nematodes do come, do become available, and I certainly would use them. I've never used them before in terms of slugs, but I would use them this year. I will use them this year if I can get access to them, and hopefully, hopefully, that will mean that you know these potatoes that grow so well, look so good, are edible for us and us alone, and not the slugs. So that's the plan, but, as I say, an ongoing battle and be constant in it. Keep vigilant, get your husbandry right, set up your ecosystems and then things will start to become more and more manageable as time goes on. I hope that helped everybody and that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and until the next time, happy gardening, thank you.