Me vs the slugs!

My mini garden may only be a few days old, but it’s lovely to finally have something to stroll out and look at every night after work; a few minutes of giving a leisurely water and hunting for signs of growth is a real de-stresser after the cares of the day. However I’m already squaring up to some serious garden adversities who did not take long to sniff out the new food hall in town!

Day two of my morning strolls revealed several holes in the leaves of my Lychnis Coronaria and Aster Happy End, and the following morning even more appeared, only this time the Aster had been eaten down to a virtual stump! Whilst nothing else had been touched, it was clear that neither of these plants would withstand much more abuse. 

An emergency Google threw an array of solutions, and I decided to try as many as possible. First, the beer traps went down, next a liberal scattering of slug pellets around each of the victims. Finally, I constructed large plastic cloches out of old water bottles and sank them as far as possible into the ground around each plant (taking care around the roots) and stuck on a belt of copper tape just as an additional deterrent. Get past that scumbags!

A few days in and it seems to have worked. My poor aster is just about clinging on to life, and the slugs (at least that’s what I’m assuming is responsible) don’t seem to care for anything else on offer. I’m counting myself lucky that I’ve planted up just as the start of a long dry period, as apparently once it rains the slugs will REALLY go to town. Uh oh…!