In the garden: Wage war on pesky slugs

Sue Goetz

guest columnist

When I first became an inhabitant of the Pacific Northwest, I was warned that slugs would be a serious pest — destructive to all that was succulent and valued.

Why is it that garden pests don’t eat the bad guys, like blackberry brambles?

So became the learning of all the trappings and folklore of getting rid of slugs.

Here is a list of interesting natural remedies:

The salt shaker

Now really, who has time to shake salt all over the slugs? Get the kids on it; my daughters became avid slug hunters.

I would find salt shakers out on the porch and globs of slime on sidewalks. They thought it was disgustingly cool to kill slugs in such a manner.

I must say, letting them do that in the early spring was one of the best population controls of slugs that year.

Warning: Don’t use large amounts of salt in planting beds. Use just a shake on the pests, because salt will build up in soils and harm the plants.

The slicing method

When I first heard garden writer Ann Lovejoy mention this was how she attacked them in her garden, it gave me the creeps: The method is to chop them in half with pruners while out doing chores in the garden.

The other slugs will come to forage off the carcass, allowing a larger trap for the demise of more.

It took me a bit to actually do this, but after a tattering of a prized hosta, anyone can resort to a bit of gruesome behavior in the garden.

Drink all night and drown

A fellow gardener told me his best cheap method of slug removal: Get an empty, clean cottage cheese container, cut small (slug size) holes in the lid. Bury it in the ground so the rim of the container sits at ground level. Fill it with beer — I haven’t heard if they have a preference for microbrews, so go cheap!

Slugs like beer and will party all night to their demise of drowning.

There are many ways, from homemade containers to manufactured ones, to hold the beer and attract slugs to dive in. Just make sure it isn’t where the dog or cat can drink, if it’s in the open.

Stop night watering

Studies have shown that slug damage can be reduced up to 80 percent by simply changing a watering schedule.

Slugs are nighttime destroyers that like dampness. Avoid watering your garden in the evening.

Watering in the morning will allow planting areas to dry during the day, giving less of an ideal environment for slugs.

Copper

Copper supposedly “shocks” slugs when they come in contact with it.

Rather than figure out how to get copper strung all over the garden, this method is best used in small areas, such as container gardens.

Buy copper strips at least 1 1/2 inches wide, and wrap them around flower pots and under sides if slugs can crawl into drain holes to hide. The success is to create a barrier that slugs have to cross to get to plants.

To make any method effective for longer-season control is to get to them as early in the season as possible.

Slugs begin to feed, hatch and lay eggs as soon as soil temperatures rise above 40 degrees.

They forage at night or on cool, damp days. Finding their hiding places and destroying eggs will start the attack, and then try your favorite folklore remedy to go after the voracious feeding babies and the adults.

Waging a slug war in the spring will allow emerging perennials and vegetable seedlings a chance.

Sue Goetz, CPH, is a garden consultant, designer, speaker and writer from Gig Harbor. Visit www.thecreativegardener.com or e-mail questions to be answered in this column to info@thecreativegardener.com.