Slugs are one of the most deadly enemies for most food gardeners. One single slug can lay waste to a row of seedlings in a single night, and if your garden is seriously infested then it’s almost impossible to grow anything successfully.
Because of this, many people resort to chemical pest control measures such as slug pellets. Unfortunately, these poisons can also do harm to wildlife, children, and pets, and for this reason are often best avoided.
Other widely touted measures such as laying beer-filled slug traps can certainly help, but if your slugs are causing serious problems then it’s time for biological warfare: bring out the nematodes.
Nematodes are microscopic worms that live in the soil, and occur naturally in most gardens. There are many different species, but the one we’re interested in, phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita, has the happy habit of invading the bodies of slugs, making them feel rather poorly - they stop eating, and burrow down into the soil to expire.
Under natural conditions, the nematode and slug populations keep a happy balance, but if you drastically increase the nematode levels in your soil, it’s very bad news indeed for the slimey plant eating sluggy fiends.
You apply nematodes by mixing with water and watering your soil with a watering can, and this is best done in wet weather which is bound to attract a certain amount of interest from your neighbours. For nematodes to be successful, the soil temperature needs to be above 5C, although lower temperatures will generally just make the microbes dormant rather than kill them.
One application of nematodes will control the slug population for up to six weeks, and repeated applications will over time drastically reduce the slug menace in your garden as the breeding cycle is disrupted.
You can buy nematodes in packs suitable for treating gardens of 40 or 100 square metres, and you can also buy them in yearly batches where a new dose will be sent out to you in six week intervals.
Nematodes aren’t the cheapest form of slug control available, but they’re one of the most effective - and completely safe and environmentally friendly.
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It would be interesting to hear from someone who has actually used these! Is there an ideal time to start using these - when the soil starts to warm up, for example?
You need a minimum soil temperature of 5C for the nematodes to start their work, so using them before say the end of march is probably no good. Other than that, any time is a good time to start - especially at this time where seedlings are at their most vulnerable.