Thread: I hate slugs!
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Old 13-05-2013, 05:53 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible
Ecnerwal Ecnerwal is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Apr 2012
Posts: 177
Default I hate slugs!

In article ,
"Natural Girl" wrote:
In a late night rampage of me saving my cucumbers from the slimey devils I
ended up actually touching one with my fingers. EWWWWWWWWWWWW! I can't
stand that slime on my fingers. Is there an easier way to get that slime
off your fingers?


It's kinda nasty, but will come off with scrubbing. Try a pumice soap.

Or: Disposable gloves, or non-disposable gloves that you store very
carefully (no point in them if you get slime on the inside), after
scrubbing up as much as possible.

For moderate infestations I tend to scrape into a cup of something
(ammonia solution, lately) and for the big ones, just deal with the EWWW
and scrub up afterwards. Gloves are more fuss than I want to deal with.

I did experiment with spraying ammonia solution on them (go out at night
when you would pick and look for them to spray, not any sort of "spray
everything" approach) last year, though I found that my slugs seemed not
to mind some of the more dilute solutions that various places claimed
killed 'em dead. I ramped up until I got convincing mortality, and did
not appear to damage the plants. I don't recall exactly how far that was
- perhaps 1 part household ammonia to 3 parts water (having started at
perhaps 1:20 which appeared to be a refreshing tonic, rather than death
to slugs.) Main advantage is it's a lot faster than picking when you
have lots of small ones (and may finish off the ones you can't hardly
see to pick.) Downside would be if it burned your plants, and whatever
collateral damage it my be doing to beneficials. Thus, the cup of it
rather than spraying, unless slug-ma-geddon happens again. Iron
phosphate is probably a better solution to slug-ma-geddon, for that
matter, just not one I've tried here yet.

A cup of salt or salt solution also works, but then you have
salty-slug-mess to dispose of, and salt is rather more dire for plant
growth than ammonia. A cup of ammonia slug mess can be dumped in the
compost pile, where it will not help the compost a bit for a while, but
will eventually be sorted out by the rest of the pile.

I've watched slugs go into and then out of saucers of beer, so I stopped
putting them out. Some do die, but evidently only the ones who won't
leave the bar.

Trap boards (just boards or tiles laid flat on the ground) work very
well to make collecting some part of the population quick and simple. If
you have birds, just collect and dump and then watch the beak-wiping
antics begin (my chickens would happily eat slugs, but clearly did not
enjoy the slimy beak.)

The dream of the birds harvesting the slugs themselves foundered on the
collateral damage to the plants. Supposedly ducklings of a certain age
are better than chickens at this, but I'm not a big fan of domestic
ducks. A sibling does the bird-moat-method - a bird run all around the
garden that gastropods (and other tasty bird food) have to cross, but of
course the birds are not out feeding at night when the gastropods are.

--
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