I always knew there were slugs in my garden, they did a little damage here and there, but for the most part they left most of my plants alone. They did, that is, until last spring when I got it into my head to plant myself some Chinese Cabbage. Apparently slugs like Chinese Cabbage, very much. Within a few days my beautiful little seedlings were reduced to practically nothing. I was very upset. My cabbage would have been so beautiful!
This year will be different! I'm going to invite the slugs over for a beer! Now you think I'm crazy, but beer is one of the many organic slug bait and trap methods I came across while researching ways to control garden slugs. Ah, but wait, I am getting ahead of myself.
What They Are and What They Do
Before we get too far into it, let me give you a little background. Slugs are mostly nocturnal and prefer moist conditions. They are a type of mollusk and are related to clams and oysters, but land based. Slugs are very much like snails, except they don't have a shell. They feed at night or on rainy days and take shelter during the heat of the day. Thats why you don't see them very often, unless of course you disturb their hiding places. They like to hide in moist, dark, cool places, such as under rocks, boards and piles of decaying organic matter. They are coated in a mucosal slimy substance that helps protect their soft squishy bodies from drying out. Eeeeeeeeooooooh. Yucky .
Do you have garden slugs? If you have plant damage that involves holes that seem to appear in your plant leaves overnight and you find slimy gooey trails of mucous on your plants and on the ground, then you probably have slugs. Snails can also cause similar symptoms and apparently can be controlled in similar ways, so I will just deal with slugs as a general example.
My research yeilded a number of different methods for dealing with garden slugs. These include some preventive strategies, environment friendly slug bait and slug traps, as well as encouraging natural enemies. So onward...
Prevention & Control
You can't completely prevent slugs, we don't want to wipe them out anyway since they are part of the ecosystem. Therefore our goal is to control the population in order to reduce the damage in our gardens to tolerable levels. So don't go all crusader on me and think you're going to rid the world of the infidel garden slugs. You have to practice a certain amount of tolerance and acceptance in all things - even pest control.
Remove slug hiding places to reduce the population. Slugs like to hide under rocks, old pieces of wood and bark. Try not to leave any such items lying around in close proximity to your garden plants. Make an effort keep grass and weeds trimmed and rake up the cuttings so they aren't laying around on the ground providing shelter for the slugs. Keep things open and airy, not dark, and damp. Garden planters and pots also provide good hiding places for these pests.
Soil conditioning can play a big role in the number of slugs and other pests that may bother your plants. Soil that is high in organic matter promotes the presence of slugs' natural enemies. These include creatures that are parasitic to the slugs and some that simply like to feed on them such as certain types of beetles. Keeping your soil healthy with regular additions of good quality garden compost will help reduce the numbers of many types of garden pests.
Shallow tilling of the soil around your plants will help keep down weeds and garden pests. Be sure to remove any leaves or mulch from the soil surface, don't give these pesky little guys a place to hide amongst your precious plants.
Dont' discourage garden snakes, toads or frogs. They should be welcome in and around your garden, because these creatures eat many times their own weight in harmful pests every year, including garden slugs. Some birds, will also eat them, given the opportunity.
Slugs bodies are very susceptible to sharp rough objects. They avoid them like the plague. One way to discourage and even kill them is to lay strips of metal screen on top of your soil, around your plants and just barely press it into the top of the soil. It will cut and kill them if they crawl over it.
Some people get good results by sprinkling dehydrated lime, sawdust or wood ashes around their plants. Crawling through these will dehydrate and kill the slugs. However, go easy, as these substances may change your soil composition in unfavorable ways. Use them sparingly, as a little will go a long way.
You could also use a commercial preparation of Diatomaceous Earth. It is a non-toxic, substance consisting of crushed fossils of freshwater organisms and marine life. Under a microscope the finely crushed powder resembles bits of broken glass. Deadly to any insect and completely harmless to animals, fish, fowl or food. The microscopically sharp edges contact the insect or larvae, and pierce their protective coating, so they soon dehydrate and die. Garden slugs are affected in the same way. This makes Diatomaceous Earth an excellent and totally natural control.
Whatever you may hear, don't use salt in your garden. Yes it will dehydrate the slugs, but it will also poison your soil and damage your plants. Salt is too harsh to use.
Bait & Trap
First of all, let me state for the record, I do not endorse the use of toxic chemicals. I am, heart and soul an organic gardener. I will never recommend anything harsh or poisonous, only organic gardening methods. That said on to the many great ideas for organic bait and slug traps.
Cornmeal. Cornmeal? Yes that was my reaction too. But apparently it is a very attractive slug bait. The method involves using a wide-mouthed jar, laid on its side with a little cornmeal in it as a slug trap. You need to make a shallow indentation in the soil and place jar so the mouth is level with the ground, so the slugs have easy access. Apparently they love cornmeal, but it kills them. I have to try this.
On to beer, one of my personal favorites. A shallow bowl, saucer or pie tin, even a small cup was suggested in one variation on this slug trap. The container has to be set into the soil so its top edge is at ground level, to make it easy for the booze hound slugs to crawl in and drown their sorrows. At least that is what is suppose to happen. It has also been suggested that yeast dissolved in water is another good slug bait and will work just as well.
It occurred to me that the beer-based slug trap would also work well with a wide mouthed jar, like the cornmeal trap. Instead of cornmeal, use beer or yeasty water as the slug bait.
How about banana peels? No really - lay them in the garden in the evening, with the inside down and come morning check underneath and remove any of the little garden bandits that you find there. When you hand remove slugs, just drop them into a jar of soapy water to kill them. Other things that make good slug bait include using a half grapefruit, orange, even potato slices, cut side down. Or how about a small pile of cabbage leaves? For even simpler slug traps, place wooden boards or flat rocks, near affected plants. Then in the morning turn them over and hand pick as mentioned above.
A friend of mine told me that one very wet spring, after a mild winter, the gardens in her neighborhood were decimated by slugs. The residents got together and put out a bounty on the slugs. They gave the neighborhood children plastic containers, some general instructions on where to find the slugs and turned them loose. The bounty was 25 cents for every 10 slugs brought in. From what she tells me it was quite effective, not to mention a great time for the kids!
Conclusion
So there you have it, organic gardening at its best. A host of environmentally friendly ways to reduce and control slug damage in your garden. I fully intend to try a number of these methods in my own garden this spring and will record their effectiveness. So stay tuned for a follow up article with my test results.
