If you have a garden full of lush seedlings and leafy leafy vegetable , you ’ve see the trail of dry slime and their gooey , tentacled bodies and wondered how something so slow - moving could do so much damage .
And you would n’t be alone in your intellection : Talk to any gardener or read any figure of online forums , and you ’ll receive that slugs are an interesting ( if not fabulously frustrating ) pest because for how long they ’ve been around ( hundreds of 1000000 of long time ! ) , we still have n’t launch a non - toxic , economical , effective , andsustainable way to deal with them .
Homemade remedies abound for controlling slug , and I ’ve tried most of them . I ’ve looked into the scientific literature to retrieve out why something mould or does n’t work . And if you desire to overcome lick in your garden , there are three primal facts you should jazz :
1. Slugs need moisture (both in the soil and in the air) to live.
That layer of slime help protect slug from dry up , and they only come forth from their mucus - line holes in the land if it ’s dark , rain down , or really damp . During dry spells , they ( and their testis ) can pose in hiding for workweek — under stones , bushes , log tons , plant debris , or other organic matter — until prosperous conditions render .
2. Slugs are attracted to the smell of yeast.
Slugs do n’t necessarily like beer , even it count like they ’re take a sip from your beer trap — they’re just fond of the yeasty smell ( the malt ) . But you know what else has a barmy smell andhas been shown to be more effective ?
Plain sure-enough bread dough !
3. Slugs are voracious but picky eaters.
It might not seem like it when you find holes in all your best-loved plant , but slugs do have a penchant for specific types of plant over others . They incline to go for beat or crumble plant material , which give them important recyclers in the ecosystem .
If their universe gets big enough , however , they ’ll start to attack living plant life . Even when there ’s a bona fide buffet in the garden , slugs will usually feast on sure species and lead others alone .
What they love : Bean entrust , beet , murphy tubers , all brassicas ( include cabbage , kale , Brassica oleracea italica , turnips , radishes , and Asiatic leafy vegetable ) , Basil of Caesarea , and strawberry fruit . This is not to say they wo n’t nibble some sugar in your garden , but if they had a choice , they ’d probably go after these other plants first ( specially if they ’re growing in partial to full spectre ) .
What they avoid : Onions , ail , tomato leaves , potato leaves , and most redolent herb ( such as oregano , rosemary , lilac , and quite a little ) . In general , slugs do n’t bother plants that get full sun ( but obviously , if they ’re hungry enough , they ’ll eat anything ) .
What actually works to get rid of slugs
The problem with certain solutions that are often advocate for slug dominance is that they :
A quite a little of articles also fail to note the most important aspect of dealing with slugs : keep them out of your garden in the first position .
After all , the right path to deal with a lick problem is to quash attracting them .
So here ’s what I do to control slug of course :
Keep things tidy
think back that first key fact I bring up ( way up there ) that you should know about slugs ?
slug be intimate to hide out during the twenty-four hour period , so your first mood of onrush should be to make your garden less inviting for them and take away all potential shelters near the plants you ’re render to protect .
That admit :
Create brighter, drier conditions
slug can not endure in ironical environments , so it ’s significant to manage moisture levels in your garden ( which also benefits filth and plant health ) .
you may do so by :
Use their hiding spots against them
Since slugs hide out during the day , you’re able to set out several 2-dimensional boards ( fillip points if they ’re old and starting to rot ) , paving stone , or even just sheets of damp paper near your plants .
The next morning , lift the hiding spot , where you ’ll likely see slug congregate underneath . Smush them , edit out them in half , or overwhelm them in saponaceous water , then iterate for one to two weeks . This should put a significant dent in your slug population .
Let seedlings grow bigger before transplanting them
Seedlings have tender tissue paper , which slugs sleep with . This makes them super vulnerable to slug legal injury and because of their small size of it and limited resources , they do n’t often recoup from an attack .
To give new seedling the good prospect at life , wait until they develop a little more fully before transplanting them outside . ensure youharden off the seedling properly to derogate stress .
Keep plants healthy
Speaking of tension , if your plants are weak and unhappy , they become easy targets for all pests ( including slug ) .
What variety of things have stress ? Inconsistent tearing , over- or underwatering , extreme temperature , too small Dominicus , too much plant food , exuberant pruning , overcrowding , ascendent disturbance , and the list goes on .
Healthy works are better able to defy slug harm because they have eminent turgor ( the internal imperativeness that gives flora tissue paper rigidity ) and pot of DOE to recover from a nibble by a conk slug .
Be certain to supervise the health of your plants ( specially young plants ) throughout the growing season to keep them productive and bouncy .
Hand-pick slugs after sunset
With a flashlight and a good amount of conclusion , you could manipulate slug simply by hired hand - picking them in the evenings when they ’re most active .
This is particularly efficient in spring when many slugs are youngins , but it ’s worth getting out there any fourth dimension you see signs of slug damage . helping hand - picking punch every Nox for one to two weeks will contain the raise in population and keep their numbers more manageable in the garden .
Set out yeast traps
I say barm instead of beer because in my experience , and based on arecent study , bread dough ( or even just a slurry of flour , water , and barm — like a runny bread ) is much more attractive to slugs than beer .
But if all you have is a crummy can of beer ? By all means , use it ! The more yeasty smell , the estimable .
( In fact , Colorado State University ran anexperimentback in 1987 to see if biff preferred one brand of beer over another . They found that the most in effect beer was n’t even a beer at all , but a now - defunct non - alcoholic trade name scream Kingsbury Malt Beverage . Budweiser and Michelob came in close second and third , however . )
revelation : If you shop from my article or make a leverage through one of my link , I may receive commissions on some of the products I recommend .
Two important things to keep in mind are :
1 . slog traps only work if they actually trap the slugs and keep them from crawling back out .
So the standard yogurt cup or pie pan - type trap is n’t really effective — you need to use a closed container with holes cut in the side to lure them in . They then fall into the lying in wait and drown before they can fly the coop .
I recommend a commercial beer traplike this onethat keep open water out . ( you may make full it with bread cabbage alternatively of beer . )
What to buy
2 . You want to localise several traps near susceptible plants .
Slugs can smack yeast from about 3 feet aside , so space your traps no more than 3 feet apart for maximal efficacy . Empty them at least once a hebdomad ( depend on how many slug you catch ) and fill again the trap with impertinent bread dough or beer .
Use an essential oil spray
One root that was tested in a nursery setting is the use of crucial oils , which can be toxic to poke ( but safe for plants ) . Thisstudyfound that when slug were tot to container plants and spray with essential oil emulsion , they faced 97.5 percent fatality rate ( a solution like to metaldehyde ) . Thyme and Mentha spicata oil were particularly deadly to poke .
you could trythis quick - made formula , which contains rosemary , sesame , Mentha piperita , thyme , Ceylon cinnamon , and garlic fossil oil to intercept clout from eat up your plants .
When you combine a few of the methods above to control slug in the garden , you ’ll be able-bodied to bring their population down significantly . The goal is not to eliminate them entirely ( since they do attract beneficial predators and serve as decomposers ) but to make them more achievable so they stick to eating your garden debris — and not your plant .
