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I’ve Got Slugs in My Beer!

Slugs Like Beer

I recently wrote about my serious aphid problem. Well, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) that is not the only pest problem I have this year. Slugs have been a recurring pain in the neck each growing season, and this year is certainly no different.

One of the disadvantages of using a mulch like straw to keep moisture in and weeds down, is that you also end up creating more potential slug habitat.

In past years I have simply tolerated the crop grazing, primarily due to the fact that they didn’t really seem to have a major impact on my ‘important’ crop plants, such as the tomatoes and zucchinis. This year however, with all my garden expansions and a renewed desire to nurture the best garden possible, I definitely want to see if I can mitigate the slug problem.

I’ve heard that slugs love beer. Luckily, I don’t mind having the odd wobbly pop myself, so I decided to test out the ‘beer trap’ method of slug removal – making sure that all remaining slugicide did not go to waste.

My strawberry patch seems to be slug central this year, so I thought this was as good a place as any to do my testing. My ‘traps’ consisted of three shallow containers with some beer in them. Pretty straight-forward stuff.

So far so good. When I checked on the traps the morning after setting them up, each of them had at least a couple slugs in them, along with an assortment of other invertebrate party animals – ants, flies, beetles etc. Interestingly, I left the traps for an additional day, but didn’t seem to trap any more slugs. Hmmm…these beer traps could get expensive (and fun at the same time – haha).

All joking aside, I think I’ll be trying out some other methods. If anyone knows of any good techniques for getting rid of slugs (in an eco-friendly manner) please let me know. One possibility that I’ve considered is diatomaceous earth, but I’m a little worried about hurting ‘good guy’ critters like lady bugs etc.

Anyway, I’ll keep you posted!
8)

[tags]slugs, slug traps, pests, garden pests, diatomaceous earth[/tags]

Written by Compost Guy on June 25th, 2009 with comments disabled.
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2 comments

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Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Natalia
#1. June 26th, 2009, at 6:39 PM.

My experience with the beer trap is that not all the slugs actually fall into it and some even manage to escape after falling in. I check my traps an hour or two after sun set. The trap walls are black with slugs!!! Lots of big ones too. Grab a flashlight and harvest them. You don’t have to change the beer trap daily either, it tends to work for about 5 days.

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com Mary Jackson
#2. June 29th, 2009, at 1:27 AM.

If you can have them a couple of chickens would be of geat help. Or even Muscovy ducks. They’re pretty quiet.