by Victoria Neely

Created on: June 28, 2007

The humble garden slug is a ravenous curse to gardens everywhere. Gardeners know well the damage a slug can unleash. Hiding from the sun under rocks and mulch by day, the slug emerges at nightfall to slime their way over to their next meal. What's the best way to get rid of these gooey pests?

One thing you can do is make your garden somewhat less habitable for slugs. Remove dead leaves and other decaying matter that slugs can hide under. Pull up the weeds, which is something you should do anyway. Be sure especially to keep shady areas free of debris and weeds. Remember that slugs often seek shelter under rocks, so you might want to think twice about having rocks in your garden.

Avoid watering your plants late in the day. If you water earlier in the day, you give everything a chance to dry out before the slugs come out to party. Slugs love moist environments.

You can also drown the slimy buggers by leaving out a dish of stale beer. They'll be drawn to the smell. So they sludge their way over for a drink and die happy. If you don't have beer, you can try a concoction of water, yeast, and sugar or honey instead.

If you're very determined, you can sneak out at night with a flashlight and kill the slugs yourself one by one. Wear gloves or use a good stick to pick the slugs off if you find handling them is too unpleasant. Mercilessly squish each slug you find.

To make your hunt for slugs even easier, you can try baiting them with slightly moistened dog food or a bit of orange peel. Check back later to see if any slugs are congregating around the food, and then murder the lot.

Crushed egg shells are said to be a good slug deterrent. The idea is that the slugs will cut themselves on the eggshells if they get to the plants. Eggshells have the added benefit of providing extra nutrients for the soil.

You could also try spreading some crushed gravel. It's similar to the eggshell tactic. Sand or ashes could be used as well.

It's rumored that coffee is a useful weapon in the war against slugs. Apparently slugs don't like caffeine. At any rate, it's something you can do with your old coffee grounds.

Whatever you do, please don't sprinkle salt: It may actually do more harm than good when it comes to the very plants you're trying to protect.

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