garden slugs?

Question

can anybody help me with garden slugs, i need something natural because i have pets at home, they are attacking all my hostas! I have tried soapy water but it has no effect.! It was suggested that i could also try beer, again nothing! any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks!

Answer 1

The beer isn't a bad trick but grape juice works too - pour some in a shallow dish and set by your plants - more than 1 per plant area - they crawl in and drown.

You can also try spiralling a copper wire around the base of the plants. form a wide circle and coil it inwards toward the plant so that it touches the base of the plant as well....I also pull up a length in between the leaves (like a loose coil support).
This will create a charge that will give the slugs an electrical poke! It can also be used around potted plants so they can't climb up.

Another trick is to lay course gravel around the plants to cut up their bodies and that will kill them too.

I wouldn't recommend the salt method - although the salt does disintigrate the slugs, it also puts too much chemical into the soil and your plants won't like it....as in winter and salt trucks - come spring the grass and plants at the edge are usually brown and dead.....so NO on the salt.

Answer 2

Buy a bag of diatomacious earth. You won't have to smell old beer and deal with dead slugs floating in beer. The DE is made up of tiny sharp shelled diatoms. The earth feels like a powder and will not cut you but will rip slugs to shreds. Just sprinkle DE on your plants and see the slug damage vanish. Redust after a rain storm. The beer theory will work but the result in kind of disgusting.

Answer 3

Scatter oat bran on the soil to kill slugs and snails.

Coffee poured directly on slugs kills them.
Spread coffee grounds around base of plants.

Flour: When slugs get coated with the flour, they suffocate & drop off.

The roots of quack grass are more toxic to the slugs than the leaves! Use no more than 2 ounces of dried quack grass per 10 square feet. Too much could inhibit the growth of your plants ( use on established perrenials). Quack grass does have some herbicidal properties to it.

Sprinkle Chili pepper on slugs & on & around the plants.

Galic spray is great for getting rid of slugs, cutworms, wireworms, & whiteflies:
Blend well 1garlic bulb & 1 onion add 1Tbsp cayenne pepper & 1 quart water. Steep ingredients for 1 hr, then strain & add 1 Tbsp Ivory soap and your spray is ready. Do not use in full sun or high temperatures because that's when they can burn or stress plants.

Surround your plants with one of these: wood ash, sharp sand, crushed egg shells, lava rock, diatamaceous earth, cedar, oak bark chips or gravel chips. These will cut & dehydrate the slugs, & eliminate them.

Answer 4

EPSOM SALT!!

Avoid using regular, table salt on your garden. The soil does not need sodium or chloride in it and plants don't use those them for a thing. All that you'll see happening is your plants will become dessicated and you'll lose them.

Not only will it devastate slugs within seconds, it will lower the pH of your soil, add sulfur, and magnesium which plants absolutely adore. It is a very safe, natural thing to use, and even in the container you can read about its uses as fertilizer and soil conditioner. Tomatoes, peppers and potatoes love Epsom Salt too!

If you prefer and have the capability, get a couple of chickens as pest control. Want the birds but can't afford the time to monitor their grazing? Get guineas or quail... A couple is all you need to clean the soil of pests

Answer 5

Crushed egg shells or diatamaceous earth ( from a garden center not the swimming pool kind ) spread around the plants. Slugs are soft bodied creatures and cannot crawl across the sharp shell bits or diatamaceous earth.

Answer 6

Go out at night with a flashlight and spray them with an amonia based window cleaner. ( a cup of amonia in a quart of water in a spray bottle) Check under the leaves. A few nights of this should get them under control. This fall, remove all old mulch and dead leaves. Replace with fresh. Table salt is very bad for plants, and even epsom salt might be over done before you get good control.
http://www.gardenadvice.co.uk/howto/pests/slugs/index.html
http://www.thegardenhelper.com/slugs.html

These links should offer helpful hints, I really like to lay a trap for them, a board that they get under during the day, then I can flip it over and spray them there.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

They will melt if you pour salt on them. Maybe mix up a saltwater solution and spray the areas that you find them with it.

Answer 9

If you see them,you can but salt on them.This will dry them out and kill them and will slowly reduce there numbers.

Answer 10

salt, plain ol table salt