Hi weezin,
this is the bigget brute I've caught this year, I was really surprised to see him, since I thought I had did away with him and his mates, and was only getting the little ones now.
This is about half the size of my AVERAGE from last year, they were massive beasts.
He is now part of a saline solution
All the best
Wintermoor
Yuck!!
I think I found his grandpa the other day in the green house. It was hiding under the rim of a pot and I touched it!! Salt works really good to take the slime off your hands.
Wintermoor - I recognize a challenge when I see one. Where I live - in the Pacific Northwest - we are a designated temperate rain forest. We have slugs that make that look like a puppy. Our's are called banana slugs here. Stay tuned for a picture. I'm just starting on daily slug patrol.
I hope I don't find any this size any more. I've been fighting them since I took over this place last July, and did away with 600 until mid-December. This one was a bit smaller than the average for last year, so it looks like I'm winning. I'm only finding the little ones now, approx 1-2".
All the best
Wintermoor
Ah, the scourge of the gardener! The slug! I've developed some methods for controlling the slug population around here. Since our soil is cool and moist, prone to rains, slugs can be a real problem. If they are having a good season, they can be raked from the underside of rocks or boards by the handsful...yuck.
The last two years, they have been less destructive, so I must be doing something right. I keep the lower leaves trimmed on some of their favorite plants (delphinium, lupine), and I seldom mulch over the soil. The slugs like to snooze away during the warmth of the day, so I don't make the accommodations easily accessible.
I seldom water in the late evening, since the wetness attracts them, and I never plant marigolds or other preferred plants in my veggie garden to distract them from the veggies. Why seduce them into the garden! They love my oriental veggies and lettuce, so I plant these in pots & put them up high where the slugs have to work very hard to reach them.
When I find slugs in the garden, I snip them in half with a handy little pair of scissors I carry. I used to carry a jar with salt in it, but the swill it created was awful. I'd rather snip them in half and let them fertilize the plants.
In the fall, I clean all leaves out of the beds and trim everything back before stirring up the soil to expose any eggs under the surface. If I find eggs, I carefully squish them all. I don't add straw to the beds until the ground is frozen. This should reduce the slugs, and it prevents voles from feasting on the roots all winter.
Last of all, I spread a bit of "Sluggo" around the plants the slugs visit. The eat the bait and cannot feed again. Sluggo is safe for other creatures.
I've seen the big banana slugs in Oregon. They are huge, and the slime trail they leave is pretty disgusting. My son bought me a ceramic coffee cup with a slug on the side of it. Guess it doesn't hurt to have a sense of humor!
>For two years now, we have a invasion of slugs. Many people gave up their gardens. The freshly planted vegetables and salad plants dissapeared overnight. I watched them crawling up on my big Brug trees. We watched them crawling up the house walls, GH - walls. It was disgusting. We have a new invader in Germany, a spanish slug, longer and slimmer as our own. Hedge hogs dont eat them, they supposed to taste bitter. So I deceided to put up beer traps. (beer lovers, excuse). They liked Pils more than normal export. I put up 10 traps close to the Brugmansias. It sounds unbelievable: I catched over 2600 slugs in six weeks. I counted them all. On some rainy evenings, I had to clean the traps twice to three times and add fresh beer. After this experience, I bought a large bag of snail bait and covered the whole garden with it. They eat from the bait and then slime out and die. This was just as disgusting as with the beer traps. Slugs can smell food up to 10m, so neighbours slugs are invited too.
I don't know how they got here, but a few years ago a few banana slugs appeared here. They are about 20" long when extended, and when they are not, they are bigger around than my thumb. I can't stand to kill the disgusting things, have to call for help, gagging!
Really, to go outside to get the morning newspaper and see banana slugs climbing all over the screen door really gets me.
An entomology professor from the local university a couple years ago requested all gardeners to mail him their slugs. He was doing a research project trying to find a naturally occurring bacteria or parasite that he could market. He found a European one, but wanted a local one. He got coffee cans full! I can't even begin to imagine opening his mail! And I thought opening my door was bad!
Ugh, oh Lordy! Phew!!
okay, what do slug eggs look like, so I'll know what to look for?
I put this one back on top because I want to know too.
Kathy
Check out this link. It's a photo I took of some slug eggs in the fall of 2001. http://davesgarden.com/postforum.php
Link? It just says http://davesgarden.com/postforum.php I wanna see the icky slug eggs! All I've seen are bright pink apple snail eggs, LOL.
Gardenwife: Sorry about that hyperlink. Don't know what I did wrong, but Poppysue saved the day! No snails up here, just slugs... and that's fine with me. The less slime the better!
Found my first young banana slug a few days ago sliming across the driveway right after a night's rain. It was only 8" long when crawling. Dumped about 1/4 cup of salt all over the area. Yuck :(`
I usually find the adults up an outside wall or door. Those nasty things are about 14" long when extended. Can't say I measure them carefully, can't stand them. I do a yucky slug dance when I find them.
Wish I knew where the originals came from, but have found a few every year for the past 4 years. Do their eggs look any different from the posted photo?
I just keep saying, "yuck" & "ewwwww" I too have a dance I do when I see the nasty things! I call it the gross out dance. I have always seen some slugs, but this year they are way more abundant. I need to put some bait out. (never really had to before). I don't think I could hand pick these things even with gloves on. I hate to step on them and hear that distinctive "pop". Oh yuck, I am grossing myself out! Thanks for the pic of the eggs, I will definately take care to destroy any of those!
yuck, yuck,ewwwwww!
Julie
We don't have the banana slugs in Southcentral Alaska, though they may in Southeastern. Ours are a smaller variety, but just as disgusting. I would think the eggs would be similar for both, perhaps bigger... but not sure.
I have a neighbor that used to live in California. She used to grind up the big slugs and throw them on her compost pile. She must not get the creeps as easily as I do.
The eggs for the big ones like they have here are just like the little ones, only bigger! ;) they look like nasty little pearls. Banana slugs are practically an endangered species in this part of the country. The Hoh rain forest on the Olympic Peninsula has a whole display devoted to these critters. Me? If I have gloves on, I squish them between my fingers. Haven't seen the yellow bananas around my yard. They tend to hang out in the deep forests. We have the giant brown ones, with an orange collar. I also cut them in half with my sissors. Or get out the Worry Free pellets. Little buggers!!! hate'em!
EWWWWWWWWWW. Just how can I make them remove them from the endangered species list? Let them become extinct! (at least here in the midwest: they don't belong here -- definitely an exotic alien invader! EWWWWWWW
Has anyone tried spraying half vinegar/half water on slugs?
Not personally, but I know some people who do.
I just read in a book that slugs/snails can reduce big piles of dog droppings to zero in a couple days. Could this be an attractant? Not worth getting a dog for, but maybe "borrow" a friend's? LOL
The book, by the way is called "Bugs, Slugs and Other Thugs" and it has a fair amount of misinformation (or maybe my pests just can't read :)
I can tell you for a fact that slugs like doggie doo, or any doo available. They are also love mushrooms. I've made a habit of only accepting horse manure when it's been dry for awhile, because the wet horse manure can arrive with lots of slugs.
The problem with just cutting slugs with scissors is that since they are totally canibalistic, all of their mates come along and devour 'the one divided'.
This of course is an ideal way to attract them out of hiding and collect as many as possible in one short hunt. In fact any insect which is dead, will probably be eaten by these denizens of darkness and slime.
In the last few weeks, I've been crushing a few of the cellar beetles, which look something like this: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/7649/woodlice/ps_ident.htm and laying in wait for the slimers.
After about five minutes the first one appears. When he reaches his prey, I chop him in two (or three) with my trusty Swiss Army Knife, and the battle commences: these parts are laid at strategically important slug transits, and they fall for the trick every time. Normally within 1 hour, I massacre about 25 - 30 of the sliding opposition. These are left where they died to be devoured by their counterparts in slime, but it keeps the slimy bassas away from my Dahlias ;-)
Feriens tego (Striking I defend)
Wintermoor
No woodlouses here, unless you can count those big hairy louses with big antlers that come out of the woods and trim my shrubs! Sorry, just trying to be a-moosing!
I'm not too worried about attracting more slugs, since they are usually hanging around the area and licking their chops for my juicy green plants anyway. If they eat Aunt Ethel, it's just one less meal they get from my delphies.
I usually slug hunt during the day. Armed with my trusty scissors, I check my trapline of rocks and old boards I leave about. They just love to hide under them. By snipping them, I don't have to touch them, and that saves all that scrubbing of hands when they goo me.
We really don't have all the garden pests that more habitable climates do. I have some slugs, a few thrips, an occasional session with root maggots, cutworms,and some bouts with aphids from time to time. Of course, our huge Alaskan mosquitos eat us alive, but they leave the plants alone.
