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I have been reading about beer baths for slugs. I thought they just drank some of it and staggered off elsewhere. Seems they fall in actually.
It involves sinking a yogurt pot into various places where the slug has to travel to get to the goodies, filling it with beer, and waiting. The yogurt tub has to be level with the top of the soil. Greusome job disposing of the contents but everyone I have read about says it is brilliant.
Another tip from a lady on here is spent coffee grounds. Ask your local coffee shop for the grounds, spread them around the edges of the plants. Apparently slugs and snails hate walking on them.
Finally, and this sounds reasonably sensible to me, save all your egg shells. Wash them, pound them down to small pieces in a pestel and mortar or similar, then scatter these around the crops. The slugs dont like walking on sharp shells. Wonder if this would work with seashells also ?
Hope this helps. I am sure other more experienced gardeners will be along to add more.
Good luck.
Julie
I’ve been reading about getting rid of ground elder and couch grass in particular. Ground elder leaves are edible according to the book “Edible Plants” from Plants for a Future. Couch grass is the most difficult apparently.
In one of these two books, they reccommend covering the ground with hedge clippings, or woody clippings which lay more or less flat. Then newspapers – whole ones in an overlapping patchwork, and then flattened cardboard boxes. Follow this by old carpet (must be made of natural fibres though).
After this, you can mulch with woody trimmings again, followed in any order by these three — wood chippings, then compost, then your growing medium and use these three layers to create the top surface you want. So I would end with the woodchips on the top.
If I understand it corrrectly you can grow straight into the top of the 6 or 9 layers.
Couch grass can survive for a year underground apparently so is by far the most difficult to defeat.
The book says that Ground Elder has a very long history of edible and medicinal use, it was cultivated for both in the Middle Ages. Leaves have an unusual tangy flavour, can be served in salad or cooked as spinach. Used a great deal to treat gout and counteract the highly rich diet of monks and clergymen.
Hope this helps. The other book is called “Plants for a Future” by Ken Fern. Both are admirable and appear to cover most if not all edible and useful veggies and flowers. Both cheap from Amazon.
Good luck.
Julie
What a brilliant idea – it seems to me that these community projects are growing and growing (!)
Read about an American community who are planting up the grass beside the road between the path and the road with veggies and it is catching on bigtime using the nodig method with raised beds over the grass.
Congrats on your group.