Getting rid of slugs

[justinblake]

How do you get rid of slugs in your garden? What are your secrets? They are such a pain in the neck!

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Really? Where do you live?

Hand picking is an option. Some people scissor slugs, one by one, ugh. Salting them directly will kill them but is a ghastly way to do so and salt is bad for your soil and plants anyway.

Do not water every day so that the soil surface is not damp and slugs will find it harder to travel there. In addition, on drier soil you can dust diatomaceous earth (which I keep on hand for cabbage white butterfly caterpillars), but it becomes mostly ineffective once it gets wet from your watering or rain. You can dust your plants directly with diatomaceous earth as well.

Keep mulch and stepping stones, & boards, and out of the area where you have slug problems. Really use need a drier environment....Alternatively deliberately place a few boards in the garden but go out ever single day to scape off and dispose of the slugs that congregate underneath.

If slugs tend to be a spring time problem and it abates in summer, you might just need to postpone the planting of affected annuals, veggies, and fruits.

Hand trim susceptible plants so that their leaves and stems do not touch the ground.

Put a duck or chicken in your garden. They will eat the slugs.

The copper tape barriers really will work to keep slugs from coming into a planting bed that you have already rid of slugs. But they are expensive and you have to sand the surface of the tape in a couple months after the copper has oxidized and become less electrically conductive at the surface. You could lay down an inch wide band of diatomaceous earth in the same place as you would use tape. Or you could use lines of caustic ash that way. I'm guessing that you may have to use wider lines if you have larger slugs, such as banana slugs.

There are commercial bait/killers such as Escar-Go and Sluggo that are fairly harmless to other things in your garden, but you might have to pay attention to not introducing too much phosphate ions with them, depending on your soil.

If you hear about trapping them with beer in containers at soil level, my mother swears it works, but I've never tried.

In my garden, my biggest helps are delayed planting, keeping foliage (especially lettuce off the ground, spacing the most susceptible plants so that the slugs cannot just glide from leaf to leaf, plant to plant and not watering too often. But we have only small slugs here, and it is never a horrible problem.

[irmanator]

you can either use crushed egg shells, I put in the food processor, or sand just throw some on top of the dirt. Either of these will have egdes jagged enough the slugs will not like it. You may have to re-do it every so often. Added bonus is the eggshells put nutrients into the soil.

[justinblake]

@Joan.of.the.Arch: Thanks Joan. That's a handful of tips. I have tried the chicken trick, but boy, they just walk over the plants and I hated having to clean up after their sh*t.

@irmanator: Hmn... sounds easy. I'm gonna try this egg shell trick, even if it means having eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a few days. =)

[irmanator]

well if your where I am.... you have a few months .... I keep them in an old coffee can in freezer, when it is getting full i defrost and grind them in blender or food processor, depending on which one is already dirty cause they are going in the dirt anyway and i hate washing extra dishes, lol Then i put back in coffee can and refreeze till i need them

[Gardener]

Natural Slug Solution

I used slug shields. They are natural, they work, and they last all season. The bane of my existence (i.e. slugs) do not bother me anymore - miracle! I got them online.

[GrimJack]

Diatomaceous earth works - when looking for them check under siding overhangs with a scraper, move things and look under them during the day. Be heartless, step on them whenever and where ever you see them. Move planters - check really shady areas. I take a trowel and drag it along overhand where the house sits on the foundation - that is where I find most my snails and slugs.

[GrimJack]

I used slug shields. They are natural, they work, and they last all season. The bane of my existence (i.e. slugs) do not bother me anymore - miracle! I got them online.

My mind went off here: did you get the miracles, the slugs or the shields on-line (snicker)-

[Gardener]

I got the miracle through the slug shields through the internet The slugs were omnipresent, no gift to my chard there!

I tell you, a no-maintenance slug solution is nice. I don't like to kill them anyway.