The best methods of dealing with slugs

What is a slug

Slug - perhaps one of the most disgusting pests that can be found in the garden or vegetable garden. It is a gastropod mollusk, which, due to certain evolution and adaptation for effective existence in these conditions, has lost its shell, but has acquired many skills that allow it to live and develop in the respective regions. If we talk about the zoning of the pest, then you can meet it almost everywhere, where there is a mild climate, medium or high humidity, as well as food sources.

A naked garden slug, or a slug, is a rather strange creature that manages to sneak into the most incredible places and conduct destructive activities there. We can notice a pest in a garden, a kitchen garden, and even in a summer cottage, where most often the conditions for living are pretty good.

The pest causes serious damage to many dacha plants, but prefers young ones with large and soft foliage. Apparently, it is easier for slugs to feed on plants with low hardness of greens, or they get the maximum of nutrients from them.

You need to fight with slugs, and the question should be addressed already then, as soon as you noticed the first representative of this type of pest. Otherwise, even in one warm season, a slug will be able to occupy large territories and multiply so that it will be much more difficult to completely destroy it.

We also recommend reading: How to get rid of the Colorado potato beetle on potatoes. Fighting hops in the garden. How to deal with snails in the garden. Means for fighting mice in the house and in the country

Expert advice

We often communicate with experienced gardeners, who provide us with advice on how to deal with this or that dacha disaster. And today we are ready to give you a whole range of activities that will help to cope with slugs in the garden or young garden.

How to deal with slugs (video)

Spices as a remedy for slugs

We begin with the simplest methods, which, in our opinion, are very controversial. These are ordinary kitchen spices that some gardeners scatter around the beds or in the young garden. Allspice, rosemary, cilantro and even dry parsley, supposedly, scare away slugs and do not allow them to move freely around the area where they would like to eat.

It is quite possible that the spices will help, perhaps, only in one season, since all the pests today perfectly adapt even to poisons, and are definitely not capable of reacting to them after several generations.

But again, we will say that this is only a popular method of struggle, the result of which we do not undertake to guarantee.

Beer vs Slugs

It turns out that slugs react to beer in about the same way as medars, about the fight with which we recently wrote here. It is only necessary to arrange a trap for them, into which slugs will crawl at night, during the period when they are most active.

Scoop up any small container of fresh beer from the evening, just so that the rim of the container is flush with the soil and does not make obstacles, and the slugs themselves will come to the bait, where they will find their doom at the bottom of the trap.

Such methods seem to us a little fun, like the usual dacha experiments, but each of them has the right to life, because for someone because they work!

Preparations to get rid of pests

Many younger gardeners, who don’t want to waste time setting up traps or reading information about effective methods against pests of a garden, make it easier to buy money from slugs in stores.

Of course, this can be done, and it is quite likely that this is one of the most effective ways to influence the pest, but you need to be sure that the product will work and not harm the soil and crops grown in the garden at the same time. Therefore, your chosen drug should be carefully examined, read about its content, instructions for use, assess the possible damage to the earth and plants, and only then apply.

At the moment, many poisons against slugs are known, there are even complex ones among them, and they simultaneously work against several pests, but we would not advise buying everything. We draw your attention only to drugs, about which we know something ourselves. These are Ferramol, Thunderstorm, Meta, Bros Snacol, Shneken Linsen (Etisso), Slyneed.

Fertilizers for cabbage from slugs

There are no direct fertilizers that are designed to control slugs, but there are substances that do not tolerate pests. As an example, we can cite mineral fertilizers, and the same calcium that our enemies dislike. Often, such fertilizers are needed in the soil where cultivated plants are grown, but simply pouring them onto the surface of the beds is not recommended, as over-saturation of the soil with certain substances may be worse than poor soil!

You can safely use this method of dealing with mollusks, especially if plants need additional feeding during this period. But be sure to read our article on the valuation of fertilizers, and also pay attention to the agrotechnology of plants to do everything correctly.

Expelling unwanted guests dry soil on the site

If you think logically, slugs that prefer high humidity will be less likely to love dry land. These conclusions were made by gardeners tens of years ago, when they began to dry the soil in order to drive slippery guests out of the territory.

Many simply sprinkle the top layer of dry earth, thereby protecting the ground after watering, some simply better watering, for example, arranging drip irrigation, which we also recommend reading through the link. But there are also solutions to arrange good drainage under the beds. This may be relevant and even effective, but time consuming and expensive.

Frogs and hedgehogs against slugs

Few people love frogs, but we have not heard of a man who would not be moved by hedgehogs. And now, if no one will breed toads to fight slugs, then surely you can populate the site with several hedgehogs. One has only to remember that in this case it’s not worth feeding hedgehogs, as children often do, otherwise the fight against slugs in this way will quickly lose its effectiveness.

Such animals in the country - an active enemy of pests, and therefore should not be afraid of hedgehogs, frogs or birds, if they live in the garden. On the contrary, try to disturb them as little as possible, so that those who feel the natural environment, feed on the usual and, accordingly, help you in the war with the enemy!

Shellfish Traps

One such in which beer participates, we have already described a little higher. But there are also special traps for sale, tested by time and by many summer residents. They are a plastic cup, closed on all sides, with only two entrances. Entrances are a tube that does not have a bottom inside the glass. That is, having placed a special bait inside such a glass, and setting it on a garden bed, one can well expect that the slug will crawl to the trap, crawl over the fragrant food, and simply fall into the glass.

So, if you set the trap evenly, you can collect in each a few pieces per day.

Try, maybe this is the most effective method for the destruction of slippery pests in the country.

Hand picking 

This method of pest control is recommended by many, but it is effective against those representatives of this class of dacha that does not have the opportunity to escape from you. So you can collect the Colorado potato beetle, about the methods of struggle with which you can read here, as well as our stubborn slug, which upon detection simply can not hide from us.

It is much easier, faster and cheaper to collect slugs by hand than to buy special poisons for them. Moreover, you will not be engaged in absurd affairs, for example, to find a slug and to splash at it with poison, which acts only directly. Well, why, in this case, the poison, if the enemy in front of you and can not escape?

Collect pests in a bucket or other container, take it outside the cottage, and then invent yourself the most humane way of “parting” with uninvited guests.

Prevention of shellfish invasion

We decided to tell you not only about how to destroy the slugs on the site, but also about the prevention of pests, which can simply not be allowed to young and fragile plants. You only need to adhere to the measures that we recommend, and you will not only be able to deal with slugs in the garden and garden plots, but also improve the whole cottage with our advice:

• First, the cottage must be clean and well maintained. The minimum amount of weeds will create a good warming and airing of the soil, and will not give those places where coolness and humidity will stagnate. But this is a favorite place of slugs - wet, average temperature, shade, a minimum of anxiety. The same can be said about the leaves in the garden, which should not just lie in heaps. It is there that moisture is collected, and inside such a mound is pretty cool;

• Secondly, it is important to prevent pests from feeding. In order not to collect slugs on cucumbers and beds with young cabbage, try to protect them with a "sharp" barrier. It may be old plastic panels, dug into the ground and protruding only 3-5 cm, thin sheet metal or tin, creating the same fence, well, or even a pile of nut shells, through which the slug simply does not climb;
• And, thirdly, we recommend that you learn how to mulch the beds, and use fine sawdust as mulch. Slugs prefer to avoid such places by the side, as they simply cannot move for a long time. Sawdust adheres to the sticky body in the mucus, and the pest becomes practically helpless. The fine dry sand, sprinkling with wood ash works in a similar way.

Some preventive methods are very simple, and you can use them against slugs without spending time and money. Agree, it is much better and more correct than later to buy poisons and poison them not only with pests, but also with the soil and cultivated plants.

Slugs on pepper: methods of struggle (video)

Fighting slugs in the country will be much easier if you are ready for it in advance. So bookmark our article to be able to return to it at any time.