Slugs aren’t just slimy and creepy and ugly, they’re also in league with Japanese beetles and aphids when it comes to destroying gardens. And while gardeners, wielding shining spades and forks, may appear to be formidable foes, they are often forced to surrender to these tiny pests that gnaw holes into flower seedlings and transform lettuce heads into loofahs.
No more.
On Tuesday, the Belfast Garden Club gathered for their monthly meeting to “slug it out.” Club member Martha Laitin led a talk on swiftly and efficiently vanquishing “garden-variety” slugs.
To slay a foe, it seems that you should first know him.
Well, a slug is neither a “him” nor “her.” Slugs are hermaphrodites, having both male and female reproductive organs. So when two slugs mate, both have the ability to produce eggs — usually 25-50. In other words, their army grows twice as fast.
“Every three months, they mate, and they have an 18-month life span,” Laitin said. “They live for more than a year, including the winter because their body has a kind of antifreeze. And not only the adults, the eggs survive the winter. Thrilled yet?”
A mild winter increases the chance of slug survival, and the following summer may see an especially large slug population.
“Slug” is simply the common name for all gastropod mollusks that lack a shell. If they have a shell, we generally call them snails.
“Slugs have more teeth than sharks,” Laitin said. “That’s how they chew through your leaves. Even on their first day born they’re trying to chew, even though they don’t have teeth yet. It’s called rasping, and it scars your leaves.”
Slug mucus production is a bit complicated and includes the ability to shoot a “slime cord” out of its rear end and gracefully land on your mulch after devouring one of your taller plants.
Laitin had gathered several methods for ridding yourself of slugs to present at the meeting. Epsom salt sprinkled around plants can deter slugs, as well as pine needle mulch, coffee grounds mixed in mulch and seaweed mulch.
The simplest way to get rid of slugs is by handpicking them (wearing gloves) off plants and stuffing them in a plastic bag. Throw the bag away.
This can be tricky. Slugs prefer shady, damp areas quite simply because they dry out and die in the sun. After checking the foliage (their snack spots), check the shade.
“When people put logs around raised beds or line gardens with rocks, oh don’t they like that. They’re so happy you did that,” Laitin said to the laughter of her fellow club members. “Weed piles, left out plant pots and dropped blooms — they like those too.”
The first way to prevent a slug problem is by clearing out leaf litter and debris in gardens. And if you get slug slime on your hands, use a dry paper towel to clean it off. Their mucus simply absorbs water. If your gloves are completely slimed, clean them with white vinegar.
Beer is also a solution. Slugs are attracted to yeast, and many gardeners have found success in leaving open jars of beer in the garden. Slugs climb in and drown in the frothy brew.
“They can smell the yeast in the beer, and slugs actually follow other slugs’ slime trails,” Laitin said. “And there was a college study about which beer attract slugs the most. Contrary to common belief, they found that slugs prefer microbrews.”
Copper, believe it or not, is also a slug deterrent. Slug mucus reacts with copper and sends the slug an electric shock. Many gardening centers carry adhesive copper strips to border plant containers and pots. Copper mesh perimeters around gardens are also effective.
Laitin’s last bit of advice was to raise the pH of the soil since slugs prefer acidic soil. A common way to do this is by adding lime.
After discussing battle tactics, it’s only fair to mention what these slimy pests are good for. Slugs recycle plant matter into fertilizer. Their nutrient-rich poo helps things grow. Still, they do a lot more harm than good in magnificent flower, herb and vegetable gardens.
Slug Solutions
Courtesy of Martha Laitin of the Belfast Garden Club
Yeast-baited traps
2 1-quart Mason jars
1 packet dry yeast
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
2 cups lukewarm water
Directions: Stir contents together and nestle the jars in the earth at an angle, with the lower lip of the jar reaching the surface of the earth. Place the jars in this manner every 6-8 feet in your garden. Dump and refill them on occasion.
Copper Slug Fencing
Stuf-fit copper mesh ( doyourownpestcontrol.com)
Directions: Rid your garden of slugs by handpicking them. Then surround your garden with a strip of copper mesh, hidden just beneath the surface of the earth. Slug mucus reacts with copper, shocking the slug and deterring it from the garden.
Ammonia spray
Household ammonia
Nonchlorinated, nonsoftened water
Old Windex bottle or garden sprayer
Directions Mix: 1 part ammonia to 5 parts water. Put mixture in sprayer and spray the entire garden and surrounding land 3-4 days in a row.
So here we have another major advance in ridding your garden of pests brought to us by the pro-organic anti-pesticide crew. Yup, go out and pick them off the plants by hand. Of course that straw mulch the organic people told you to buy for weed control is akin to building a luxury high rise for slugs so now you’ll have even more to pick off, by hand. Yes I’m poking fun here but there is a serious side too. Most of us, well at least me, grow a garden to put food on the table. It’s much more than a “nice to have” investment. It takes time, a lot of time, and increasingly more money to make it happen. Frankly I don’t have the free hours multiple days of the week to go out and hand pick garden pests off of my veggies. I need a good pesticide that actually works. If that pesticide is organic, and affordable, then fine I’ll use it. However if it doesn’t work well then I want the non-organic stuff that actually does the job. For me, growing a garden isn’t play time, or politically correct time, or bragging time when the first early peas are picked. Growing a garden is ALL about feeding my family.
The best solution for slug control is a combination of
cultural controls, including handpicking, the use of traps and barriers, and in
some instances chemical baits. If you are relying on a silver-bullet pesticide
treatment to remedy all of your pest issues rather than an integrated approach utilizing multiple strategies, you are doing your garden a real disservice.
MaineSt: evidently you’ve never dealt with the kind of slug issues that I have. I’ve tried the integrated approach for eons and it simply doesn’t work. Traps and barriers often time exacerbate the problem and add to the frustration of gardeners who are actually attempting to grow their own food. It is unfortunate that so much misinformation is spread about the subject, because if we gardeners had real knowledge of what works and what does not work than we surely might have a more sustainable food system!
I live in a heavily shaded, moist area of the Pacific Northwest. I’m attempting to grow as much food as I can, and have had to do my own research on this whole slug business. Unfortunately the methods that you list simply do not work and will only add to the frustrations of fellow gardeners. Slugs could care less about copper, coffee grounds, etc. And beer? What a rip. Slugs love beer, and only a small percentage of them will crawl in and drown You’re just feeding the rest! I know this because I did my own experiment to figure out why, after I had tried to drown out my slugs with beer or yeast traps, they did not die off.
The only thing that works is by physically destroying them (say, with scissors) or using a bait. There are vast differences between types of bait. Iron phosphate is the best option, but the price is astronomical in the smaller quantities. You’ll need to seek a landscape nursery to find large 50 pound bags.
I write extensively on the slug subject, as it is a huge problem of mine. Please feel free to stop by my blog to read more: http://www.mysuburbanhomestead.com
I used to have a severe problem with both slugs and snails, particularly on broad leaf flowering plants such as lilies and iris, until a gold course superintendent told me to use Dawn dishwashing detergent. Mix a quarter cup to 1 quart of water, mix well but don’t shake, and hand spray (“stream” setting) at the plant stems (8-10 inches from the ground up). You may have to change the mix slightly based on local conditions to avoid suffocating the leaves. Reapply after heavy rain or about once every 2-3 weeks. In some shady areas where infestation is most concentrated I mix the water with 2 tablespoons of cayenne pepper first (shaken) before adding the Dawn.
At one point, I had some very large slugs in my yard. They would come out in the early evening, and would even climb up the side of my house. I tried controlling them by putting small amounts of salt on them which would kill them.
One evening when I was on “slug patrol”, I noticed a high concentration of slugs in a particular area of the yard. I kept watching that area, and located what appeared to be the slug nest where the slugs went back each night to spend their days out of the sun. That night when the first slug was coming up out of the nest, I salted it. Big time salted it, and it died in the hole.
Apparently, the other slugs perished since after that day I never had another slug in my yard. It’s been years now, and may it stay that way.
I’ve written a post on the subject, please stop by and check it out.
http://www.mysuburbanhomestead.com/how-to-get-rid-of-slugs/