A former royal gardener has shared an easy tip on how to get rid of slugs in your garden and it’s a method that works. King Charles’s former senior gardener Jack Stooks has shared his tips on what you can try out at home to deter the pests.
As spring approaches, many of us will want to turn our attention back to our gardens, but there can be some challenges to arise such as dealing with pests. Slugs are one of the worst culprits, but there are luckily some simple things you can do to deter them from getting into your plants in the weeks to come.
James worked in the royal gardens of the Highgrove Estate for more than 20 years and has given his top tips on how to deal with slugs on behalf of JeffBet. One of his top tips is to use copper collaring, he said that the pests will refuse to travel over the trap as copper gives them a shock.
He said: “One thing people do is they put copper collar around pot work.
“If you have pots and it’s easy enough to put a collar around, or certain plants you could do this to, I do find this is quite a monotonous way of doing things.
“The brassica leaf and beer traps are the best and easiest way of dealing with slugs in the garden, but it’s good if people can have a few different methods to try and see what works best for them.”
He suggests using brassica leaves, which can be found on vegetables such as Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower and more, and placing them down in the corners of your growing patches with something sturdy on top to keep in place.
Jack says to check these every day and you are likely to find up to five or six slugs which you can hand pick off the leaves and move safely to elsewhere.
A tried and tested method of killing off slugs in the garden is to bait them with a cup or tray of beer.
They will gravitate to the beer and then fall into the liquid. They are attracted to the yeasty, fermented odour of the beer and are said to even prefer it to the fresh smell of plants.
Slug pellets are one of the most effective methods, although Jack says that many people prefer not to use these in their gardens if they have pets, or due to the fact they can have a negative impact on other wildlife.
