Out-Slugging The Slugs

Organic Controls For These Slimy Pests

From Your Friends At Schriemer's

Gardeners are often faced with the challenge of controlling slugs and snails in the garden, especially in particularly damp years. These molluscs (related to clams and oysters) will gladly eat away your favourite plants and vegetables if conditions are right, leaving behind only chewed foliage and the telltale trail of slime in their tracks.

Slugs prefer damp, shady parts of the yard with poor air circulation. They are most active in warmer weather, and are generally night feeders, which is why they can be difficult to spot during the day. While there are chemical means available to control slugs, they can usually be controlled with good cultural practices in the garden, and if necessary, a couple of tricks.

Cultural Practices

• Remove all plant and vegetable matter from the ground in fall, and keep the areas underneath your plants free of debris throughout the season.
• Maintain adequate spacing between plants to let sunlight in between and ensure air movement.
• Prune low-growing plants to keep their foliage from contacting the ground.
• Spread a layer of coarse gravel, sand, wood ash, cracked eggshells or diatomaceous earth around the base of plants; slugs have trouble crawling over these abrasive materials.
• Toads are a natural predator, so encourage them in your yard.

Organic Controls

• Hand picking is the most effective organic control (if you have the stomach for it). Go just after dark with a flashlight and look under the leaves, picking off the slugs and disposing of them in an alcohol solution.
• Round up the slugs in your garden by laying boards or planks on the ground in between your plants. The slugs will hide under them during the day, so you can just pick them off and dispose of them as above.
• Trap them in an aluminum pie plate filled with about an inch of beer or a mixture of water, yeast and sugar. They will climb in and drown. Change the solution about once a week, more frequently if it rains.
• To protect potted plants from slugs, wrap thin copper wire once around your pot, and secure it by twisting the ends with pliers. Copper wire emits just enough electrical zap to turn slugs away.