Wacky Slug Control Attempts

I remember when I posted one of my first posts on DG, someone asked if I had trouble growing strawberries because of slugs and snails. I replied that for some mysterious reason, they weren't much of a problem for me. I spoke too soon! They weren't a problem last year or the year before but are here in force now. Because I got spoiled and thought I had just been blessed, I didn't do the preventative work that might have helped (although I didn't know all the preventative steps I now know.

I just went out in the yard and was disgusted at how many promising Diamante strawberries they'd spoiled so I went online to see what I could do without having to go to the nursery to buy poison. This article suggested that high amounts of caffeine would kill them.

http://westernfarmpress.com/mag/farming_slug_control_needed/

So I went to the corner liquor store. The only other time I've bought anything to "drink" there was when I bought beer to kill slugs! Heh. My neighborhood is semi-ghetto so I think they guys think it's funny that I come in there to buy booze and Rockstar Energy Drink for the slugs in my garden. (Actually, they're Eritrean and although their English is pretty good, they haven't been living pastoral enough a life here to have learned the word "slug".)

Still, spraying that Rockstar was onerous. And since it's chock full of sugar I worried it might attract as many ants as it killed slugs. I don't have copper tape around and I couldn't figure out how to fit it around strawberries that were in the ground rather than in containers. Then it dawned on me that pennies might work. They could be used as a mulch (albeit an expensive one). So now I'm going to have to get my hands on pennies and scraps of copper (should hang out around construction sites. Those guys waste unbelievable amounts of useful material...they just throw it in the trash) to mulch my plants.

Save your money for something else .. pennies made after 1982 are copper plated zinc. The amount of copper used is miniscule .. probably only a few atoms thick.

X

I had a huge problem last year with slugs, everywhere, sun... shade, did not matter. So, I took plastic cups (12oz) and put them in a hole (with the lip of the cup about a half inch above the ground) close to the plants that were getting eaten up by the nasty slimmy things and filled 3/4 or 1/2 with beer.

It worked great! in the evenings i'd pull a chair up to watch them go to the bar to get a drink and sink to the bottom of the cup.

I acutually had about 20+ cups in the ground and about every two days, yuck, it was filled with dead slim. Saved my plants from getting wholly.

Also I have put Pine bark under a lot of the plants, they seem not to like the corseness of it.

I think that's what protected me for two years - I have coarse mulch around these plants. I was reading somewhere that I should have been getting rid of any old leaves around there because it provides places for them to hide from the sunlight.

I went out today to see how things were doing. I didn't expect the Rockstar to have worked so well because twice now we've had sudden light rains. I had hopes for the copper, though. The other night I found a long copper tube the construction dudes had thrown in the trash so I salvaged it. It seems to have made a bit of a difference (as did the pennies). I tested two different pennies pre- and post-1982 on some slugs I found. Had an equal effect: they didn't want to be on that penny and moved quickly.

If I get time this weekend I'm going to have to go over all the plants and remove not only dead strawberry foliage but leaves that have fallen from the nearest avocado tree.

I might try your hole/cup trick too, jen. Although I've pulled off of beer because I found it was getting poor little Jerusalem crickets and spiders and NOT the slugs.

I have a no-mow lawn nearby and discovered that a lot of slugs were hiding between the long blades of the grass and the garden divider. So I'll have to go through that area with gloves or something. I actually handled them with my bare hands today. Yuck yuck yuck!

I've also put a post on a local gardeners' list to see if anyone had a duck they want to let visit me. :)

you could put down diatomaceous earth. it's garden, pet, kid friendly, but it will cut the soft-bodied stuff to shreds when they cross it. you have to re-apply it after water hits it, but it's good stuff.

We use DE and beer...both work great.