Monday 4 February 2013

The Little Book of Slugs


According to these people, Britain has more slugs than anywhere else in the world. The Little Book of Slugs regales us with tales of frustrated gardeners spending nights outdoors spearing slugs with screwdrivers or creating networks of tiny electrified wires in order to kill them off. In a hundred pages, the frustrated gardener can learn of seventy different methods in order to help us deal with the enemy. Told in hilarious fashion and sprinkled with Shakespearian quotes (about slugs, of course), this would make a good read for for any gardener in need of entertainment during the winter nights.  by the The Centre for Alternative Technology, (CAT) and edited by Allan Shepherd  and Suzanne Gallant, the idea for the book was driven by the Bug the Slug campaign where readers contributed to www.ihateslugs.com with ingenious methods of slugbusting. The ihateslugs website is now defunct but the knowledge of generations of gardeners lives on in this tiny tome which is packed with ideas to slug it out (couldn't resist that one).



The book is divided into four sections. An understanding of the life cycle of slugs forms the basis of part 1 including fascinating facts such as slugs eat slugs and that throwing them on the compost heap can be a useful thing to aid the process of decomposition. Part two is a collection of seventy different methods of control sent in by the British public. The good, the bad and the ugly are all in here: instruments of death, sheeps' fleece spread on the garden, warm pee and someone who claims to swallow slugs whole believing them to be nutritious. There is also a list of slug resistant plants and the top 5 slug predators. Part 3 explains the CAT method, an organic approach of soil improvement, rotavating the soil (kills slugs eggs) and growing healthy plants that are strong enough to resist the onslaught. They claim that their methods mean that they rarely resort to traps or other means. Finally, part 4 reviews the effectiveness of each method, possibly the first of its kind in providing raw data on the traditional methods of barriers, beer traps and grapefruit skins.


The Little Book of Slugs is a great read, packed with puns that encourage us 'don't be sluggish' as well as a huge amount of information for such a small volume. It's brevity is its' strength; after all, who wants to settle down on at bedtime with an encyclopedia on slugs. There aren't any major negatives; however they don't explain how they arrived at the ratings for each method, whether that came from the campaign or they drew their own conclusions. As the book based itself on the www.ihateslugs.com website, it would have been better if they had done something to ensure the longevity of the website which is now defunct. Overall, these are minor points and the book would make a good present for any gardener with a slug problem and a sense of humour.




16 comments:

  1. Preparing for all out war this year then? ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am planning to use something called Nemaslug this year. You pour it onto the soil in March, repeat a few weeks later and it kills the young slugs. It seems the key to all plans of attack is to start early. The only disadvantage I can see is that I can't order it now. Apparently it needs to be manufactured fresh and so you can only pre order for spring.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh this sounds like a hoot...I love funny books.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Donna, it IS funny but perhaps only for the truly obsessed!

      Delete
  4. Welcome back, I have been looking for you :-)
    I must admit, slugs are less of a problem in my garden after I cleared next door garden for rubbish, bramble and weed. Slugs and snails don't like tidy gardens where they have nowhere to hide and I don't think they particularly like the bark chippings I got everywhere either. I use slug pellets, and I do have some slugs, but not something I would call a problem, not even last year.

    Would be interesting to hear how you get on with the Nemaslug, do let us know!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Helene, well that's very nice that you've been looking for me! I kind of need to be out there in the act of gardening to get the inspiration for the blog. I've been spending the winter hours browsing seed catalogues, particularly those of Sarah Raven which, come to think of it, are worthy of a blog post in themselves. One for another day...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have just bought poppy seeds and some very nice sunflower seeds from her, one of the sunflowers is purple :-)

      Delete
    2. I have spent hours on end every evening going through her catalogue as if it were War and Peace. Everything is highly desirable but there are some cheeky prices in there - £20 for a clematis that is £12 everywhere else, even Crocus. I know I will cave in and order some things but I am yet to fully define my relationship with Ms Raven!

      Delete
  6. This sounds like my kind of book. :o) I use beer traps with much success. However, I would have to disagree that the UK is home to the most slugs on Earth. Whenever I see someone too lazy to pick up their own trash or waste time driving around a parking lot until the closest possible spot opens up, I realize I'm surrounded by slugs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are so right - this earth is full of strange creatures! People chuck rubbish over our front railings and someone once buried a sandwich in a wrapper in my front window box. Weird.

      Delete
  7. Claire - I don't know of any gardener who likes slugs, but the book sounds like a good read. I must say, we do have a serious problem with them and i can at times be guilty of using pellets.on some occasions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Alistair

      Thanks for dropping by on the blog. I am as guilty as anyone of using slug pellets. The book reviews the evidence against these and it seems a bit mixed. I am going to try some Nemaslug this year.

      Delete
  8. I suffer from slugophobia - or is that molluscophobia? So I would have to skip part 1 of this book as it would be too scary for someone of my delicate disposition... a slug's life cycle is the stuff of nightmares. I have seen a slug eat a worm (last summer and I still shudder at the memory), so it doesn't come as a surprise that slugs eat slugs.

    Good luck with your Nemaslug. I find that the pitch of my screams when I see a slug seems to dispatch them pretty quickly. I just hope screaming works against the invasive killer slug they found near Norwich recently.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ha ha, I have never tried screaming. There are a lot of slugs so I suppose it might upset the neighbours. I have read about these killer slugs and lie awake at night in fear. Perhaps it would make a good horror film for gardeners. Some people enjoy scary films although I'm not one of them. Moonlight scenes of giant slugs with teeth like crocodiles munching their way through your prize delphiniums while you can only look on helplessly yet no-one hears your screams....

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi Claire, that sounds like some gruesome reading. I don't like disposing of slugs and will tend to circle them in blue pellets and let that do the work. I'm squeamish so flattening them with my boot is out of the question.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi Sunil, actually it doesn't work if try and flatten them with your boot. They are too rubbery. I won't describe what happens as you are squeamish.

    ReplyDelete