Got Slugs?!

Say hello to my little friend...



This is just one of many. I have radioactive slugs in my garden and they are enjoying dinner thanks to my hops. Last night, I discovered some of these bad boys on the leaves of my hops plants and a few others in the garden. My goal at work today was to find out a way to control these bad boys.

There are a few things you can do to control slugs, but I prefer the good ol' method of using salt. I placed 5 small dishes in my garden this evening and poured some beer in each. Not my homebrew, just some BMC I had laying around.

It just got dark here and I decided to check on my dishes. To my amazement, they must love Miller. I had slugs all around each of the dishes in the garden. Armed with my salt shaker, I quickly dispatched all the slugs in sight. I kinda felt bad, but I love my plants more than my slugs.

Just wanted to put a post out there letting you all know that if you have a slug problem, just use beer to bring them in and then let them have it with the salt shaker. I'll be out there later tonight for another mass murder!

Here's some more tips to get rid of slugs and keep them away from your plants:
http://www.eartheasy.com/grow_nat_slug_cntrl.htm

Seaweed is a great way, but I guess you don't have much access to it in Ohio.

I didn't know you had slugs that big up in northern Ohio.

You could get a chicken, they easily will take care of your slug problem.

When I was a kid, we had ducks for the same reason. They can't get enough slugs. In the PNW, they get quite fat on em.

I didn't know we had slugs this big up here either. I'm right by the lake, so everything seems to be bigger here. Good link there Chshre, I really appreciate the information. I'm trying to stay as "green" as possible, so chemicals are out of the question for me. I heard that nematodes (sp?) also work quite well. I wish I were in an area that would allow ducks or chickens, but I'm located in a pretty urban area where that's not allowed. Hopefully we'll have this under control soon. All of my cucumbers and a lot of my lettuce has already been affected....

the only problem with nematodes is that they need a good bit of moisture throughout the growing season to remain viable. the past 10 or so summers here in neo have been great for moisture, but the tide has to turn soon (not that i'm advocating that). keep at it, TIME for scouting pests is the real key to i.p.m. which a lot of us unfortunately don't have. just gotta do the best we can. HOP ON!

I just set up beer traps in my garden. Cut a can in half, bury it and fill it back up with cheap swill. They crawl in but never crawl back out.

Commercial product called Sluggo is a combo of iron phosphate (toxic to slugs but totally benign otherwise) and slug/snail bait/attractant. This is a certified organic option that has worked for me.

Other options I have seen used is a mix of 15% ammonia and 85% water sprayed on them directly. Safe for plants and all around them but kills the little buggers.

my grandfather use to put a ring of copper tubing around his garden to keep slugs out. it had something to do with the copper reacting with thier slime. so maybe try a little section of copper tubing with a slit in it so that it can sit around the base of your bine (like a ring around your bine) pinch it closed and push into the ground a little so it sits in there like a collar for your bine.
it might be a quick and easy fix.

Funny you should mention Sluggo, just picked some up from the LHWS. Sprinkled some of that on this afternoon, so hopefully we'll see a steady decline on the slug population. I'm also going to be sinking in a few cans with beer in them just as a fail-safe. The beer traps worked great last night!

I have also heard many good things about the copper. Unfortunately, it seems like my entire garden is affected by these damn things and running tubing all the way around my garden may get expensive. Maybe I can find a crack head with some extra copper laying around that is willing to sell it to me on the cheap!

Slugs/snails do not like egg shells. it is difficult for them to maneuver on them

Will an Egg Beaters box do the same thing as the egg shells? ;-)

Skip the copper, BTW. As far as I can glean, it's an old wives' tale. Heard everything from cooper oxide being toxic to a small electrical current deterring them.

Sluggo works for me and keeps them off my leaf lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and strawberries, all of their favorites (they don't even mess with my hops).

I used to go out in to my garden at night with a headlamp, chopsticks, and a glass of cheap beer. Any of those little bastards near my veggies, well, you get the picture.

bcbingman said:

I used to go out in to my garden at night with a headlamp, chopsticks, and a glass of cheap beer. Any of those little bastards near my veggies, well, you get the picture.

Click to expand...

You would Mr. Miagi their asses and force them to drink cheap beer?

heh heh. yeah....they "drank" it in with every little porous hole on their slimey little body. they shriveled up like the wicked witch in that glass of PBR.

bcbingman said:

I used to go out in to my garden at night with a headlamp, chopsticks, and a glass of cheap beer. Any of those little bastards near my veggies, well, you get the picture.

Click to expand...

Do you like sushi? Drinking cheap beer to get drunk so you can use the chopsticks to enjoy Slug Sashimi. Doesn't sound appetizing, but hey, if it works I might as well give it a try!

Bury a few plastic cups in the garden so there lip is the same level with the ground. Fill with that cheap macro brew beer someone left in your fridge. The slugs are attracted to the beer, they will crawl in and drowned. Kind of like high school, but they never graduate...

I got half a dozen big ones each night in each of 3 cups for several nights when I started this technique. Now I don't get many but I also don't have slugs eating my garden any more.

My snails apparently are too snobish for cheap BMC. They chose my artichokes and the 2-foot climb of a half whisky barrel to it.

So I poured salt water everywhere I had seen snail tracks. Next morning, +20 dead snails.