The Farmer's Almanac says that the last day of frost for Seattle is mere days away, on March 10th. |
| Slug dinner #193 |
I've been a little busy with other projects in the new year, so I'm just now dusting off my gardening tools and looking ahead to the season.
Last year I learned two big lessons: 1) I have a ton of snails and slugs in my yard, and 2) They like pretty much every single plant they can get their mollusc-y mouths on.
I am an organic gardener, so I avoid chemicals. But after seeing my beautiful basil plants reduced to lace doilies, I came dangerously close to buying mega-toxic chemicals to stop the insanity.
I decided to try non-chemical means to persuade these slimy snackers to go elsewhere. One method is to use copper tape
, but a small roll of it is expensive, and as you can see from the above picture where I had used it on the basil, the snails and slugs didn't seem to have a problem working around it.I also tried beer traps. Those seemed to work, in that a lot of slugs could be found in them the next day. But it seemed too costly and time-consuming. You'd need to change out the beer, and if it rained the mixture would be diluted and lose its effectiveness.
One interesting experiment we tried was to put beer in one cup, and put Sprite in a cup nearby. I wondered if the slugs were attracted just to the sugars in beer, or if they prefer the fermented stuff. 
It's hard to tell from this picture, but the cup on the left holds beer, and held a large amount of slugs. The cup on the right had Sprite, and only a few teetotalling slugs were found inside. Beer wins.
To address the slug problem, this year I want something that is easy, non-toxic and cheap. I found a product called Sluggo.
It's hard to tell from this picture, but the cup on the left holds beer, and held a large amount of slugs. The cup on the right had Sprite, and only a few teetotalling slugs were found inside. Beer wins.To address the slug problem, this year I want something that is easy, non-toxic and cheap. I found a product called Sluggo.
It looks like it just might do the trick.
I tried it a few weeks ago as the first slugs and snails ventured forth to feast, and I haven't seen any since. I am going to apply a wider application tomorrow and watch for invaders. It could be that my basil, strawberries and sorrel will be safe this year. Fingers crossed.
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