How can I control slugs?
Slugs are one of those garden pests that are more reliable than rain. Even in drought years, when it seems like every moisture-loving creature has packed it in, they continue to lurk under rocks, mulch and garden debris, waiting for nightfall to decorate foliage, stems and ripening fruit with large holes.
Prevention is the best way to deal with most gardening problems. In the case of slugs, this means allowing your garden to dry out between waterings, raking up garden debris and making sure that existing mulch doesn't butt up against the stems of plants.
I’m sure every gardener knows that placing beer in a shallow dish is a good way to trap slugs. (If your slugs are teetotalers, you can used fermented yeast instead.) Other tried and true methods of getting rid of slugs include decorating your garden each evening with boards, over-turned flower pots, grapefruit rinds, cabbage leaves or cut raw potatoes. When you flip them over the following morning, you can then destroy any slugs that have taken cover on their undersides.
Ground beetles, garter snakes, toads, lizards, starlings and centipedes all like to eat slugs, and attracting these predators can be as simple as mulching around your garden or leaving grass to grow across pathways.
Some folks swear that copper strips keep the slugs out of their gardens. Since these strips rely on slugs refusing to cross them, they tend to work better on raised beds, planters or tree trunks where you can be sure to cover a hundred percent of the circumference. Any slugs that were in the raised bed before you put the barrier in place will be trapped there, so you'll probably need to use a second method of control until you get rid off the existing residents.
If you have any questions or comments, please send them to me at vanessa@gardenmuse.ca.
