Ecnerwal wrote:
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.

I bought some Iron phosphate for getting rid of them and it worked for the
ones who ate it, but other slugs just went straight for my cukes. (the sorry
@!#@$@!)

It's war, I tell ya!


--
Natural Girl