Spring is a busy time of year for most gardens, with bulbs transforming into blooms and lawns coming back to life after the cold and dark winter months, but it’s not just plants that begin to emerge into the light. Now that hibernation has ended, you might have noticed some pesky visitors in your garden too.
Despite being an important part of the ecosystem, slugs are also a nuisance in the garden, especially if you’ve spent valuable hours and money transforming your flowerbeds. Coming out of hibernation in the spring months means there’s usually plenty of new growth for them to feed on, and keeping them away from plants can be quite the challenge. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of methods you can try to keep them out of your garden, although some are more economical and environmentally friendly than others. From laying eggshells around plants to sprinkling coffee grounds onto soil, and even creating a physical barrier using thorny prunings, if you find these deterrents aren’t quite working, you might want to give another method a try.
While you don’t necessarily want slugs chomping through your flowerbeds, it’s also not advised to kill them, especially as some species feed on decomposing organic matter which is necessary to the overall health of your garden.
Natural deterrents instead protect the ecosystem, and your garden, without using any harsh chemicals, and one way to lead slugs away from your valuable plants is by simply using a cucumber.
Chances are there’s a cucumber lying around in your fridge waiting to be used, and if it’s slightly off, it will be put to better use in your garden. While there’s a number of scents that slugs are naturally deterred by, cucumber isn’t one of them, but it can be used to guide slugs away from more precious plants.
Slugs are most active during the night, which is when they risk doing the most damage to your garden, but you’ll sleep more soundly knowing your garden is safe with this method.
Simply cut your cucumber into slices and place these near your more vulnerable plants in the evening. While slugs won’t be deterred by the vegetable, they’ll chomp their way through it instead of your leaves.
Before going to bed, head out to the garden and remove gathered slugs far away from your garden. In an article for Homes and Gardens, the gardening expert Thomas Rutter recommends that the pests should be moved at least 50 feet away from your garden.
Removing slugs by hand is an effective way of controlling their presence in gardens, minimising any damage to plants as well as the eco-system, and using a cucumber to help with this prevents any household waste.