But one savvy gardening expert has revealed how you can keep the pesky molluscs away from your blooms for good – and it’ll only cost you 60p.
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Posting on TikTok, the gardening whizz (@notmrspock_fact) explained that you can use something completely natural to banish slugs.
“This is what I do,” he explained in the viral video, “I had problems for years with slugs on the dahlias and look at them now, all the leaves are actually perfect because I use these – chives!”
It turns out that slugs can’t stand the chemical released by chives, which is something called ‘allicin’.
This compound helps the plant fight off bacteria, but it also gives onions their recognisable smel.
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“They stink – I can smell them from here. They hate chives, so plant these in with your plants,” the pro continued, showing off the plant in his own garden.
You can even go the extra mile to stop slugs coming for your blooms, thanks to the gardening guru’s other savvy hack.
Simply drop two crushed cloves of garlic into a pint of water and transfer to a spray bottle.
Then spritz the mixture around your plants to steer away slugs and other pests.
The advice was praised on social media, with many people noting they would try the hacks for themselves.
One gardening fan said they’d already tried it out and vouched for it’s success.
They commented: “I put garlic around my garden bed and it really helped!!! I never thought about garlic water.”
And a second agreed: “Great idea! I use garlic stench water!”
There are plenty of other cheap and cheerful tricks you can use to keep slugs at bay though, if this one doesn’t work for you.
ut the secret to saving your plants might just be your dog.
According to a number of vegetable gardeners, dog hair is the perfect repellent for pesky slugs and snails.
Jacqueline Mann said: “Dog hair. It really works.
“I guess any hair works but we have dog floof in abundance.
“Plus, the little birds come and take it for their nests.
“Just put dog hair down as a ‘mulch’ and the slimers seem to roll on by.”
Karen Adams added: “Snails don’t like going over dog hair so it stops them getting to the plants”.
The most common suggestion was to create a ring of dog hair around the stem of your plants.
The idea was posted in Facebook group Veg Gardening UK along with suggestions of using coffee ground, egg shells and a beer trap.
Fans of the dog hair trick stressed that it should only be done using dog hair that has naturally come out either through moulting or brushing.
Common garden pests
Common pests in the garden don’t need to be a cause for alarm. If you can identify them, you can work on getting rid of them and preventing them from returning.
Aphids (Greenfly, Blackfly)
Aphids are extremely common and can impact plant growth. They have tiny soft pear-shaped bodies, and are usually green or black. You may spot them clustered on the stem of soft shoots – look under leaves in particular – or may find a sticky substance on your plants that gives away aphids have been there sucking at the sap.
Whitefly
These small white-winged insects are related to aphids, at just 1 or 2 mm in length, and look very much like white moths as adults. They can be found on the underside of leaves, preferring younger, fresher leaves. They fly in clusters when you disturb them. Their lifecycle is only three weeks long, which means an infestation can occur very rapidly.
Slugs
An unmissable, squashy-looking body plus small sensory tentacles on its head. Slugs move along on one muscular foot. They range in scale from surprisingly small to terrifyingly large; limax cinereoniger species can grow comfortably beyond 20 cm in length.
Cabbage Moth Caterpillar
Cabbage moth caterpillars happily make their way into the heart of the vegetables, The caterpillars are distinguished in shades of yellow or browny green with no hair.
Mealy Bug
Mealybugs are tiny oval-shaped insects that have a white, powdery wax coating. There are several different species, many of which have what looks like legs coming from their sides and back end. In their earliest stage of life, it’s entirely possible to mistake them for fungus and not recognise them as insects at all.
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