Slugs are a menace. A yucky, yucky, yucky menace. There is some redeeming cuteness in that little shell house that snails carry about. But slugs? Zero cuteness, 100% trouble.
They have destroyed my spinach...
...devoured my parsley...
...dined on my cabbages and lettuces...
...dotted my potatoes...
and ravaged my radishes
And they are ugly, slimey, and give me the heebie-jeebies.
(no photo of slugs due to said heebie-jeebie-ness)
Now, my preferred solution would be a family of toads moving in. We even have a little (overgrown) pond like place that they might like to live. Not that they are like cutesy-wutsy little bunny-wunnies or anything, but relative to slugs, they could be called adorable. I can handle toads and frogs.
Trouble being, we have snakes. They eat toads and frogs.
This is from last year, pre-garden. Our first snake encounter in the new house, in the front flower bed of all places! But, they're still around. This is a garter, but just this week the 3.5 year old found a black one amongst the carrots he was examining!
Sigh.
How do I get rid of the snakes...so I can have toads...so they can help get rid of the slugs?
Mind boggling. Alas, for now, we're going to try cheap beer for baiting and drowning (the slugs). Didn't make it to the liquor store in time yesterday, but tonight's the night!
I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, any advice or resources on manipulating the habitat in your garden to be pro-toad or in any other way anti-slug would be appreciated!
P.S. I apologize for the blurry photos. I think something was on the lense. However, done is better than perfect at this point in my life!
Hmmm...can't say we're in a toad friendly environment, mainly because we're too suburban. But I have found putting out beer helps. Pouring salt on the slugs is quite satisfying. I guess I'm showing my cruel streak? Because I despise as much or more than youl
ReplyDeleteOh.. If I knew..my little guy just let his pet toad off to the woods, Jumping was his name.. we have so many that come out at night.. You are more than welcome to them before (sad) we move! I love your blog and it would be nice to keep on watching the beauty that you guys do even when we are down south!
ReplyDeleteI'm catching up here, I guess. We have huge numbers of slugs as well but it's funny, they don't eat any of the things they're eating in your garden. They like our lettuces (but not arugula or spinach) bok choy, and cucumbers. We've never been able to bait them so you know what we do? Every night before bed we go out with a bowl of salt water, a fork, a spoon, and a flashlight. Our garden is small enough that we can hunt them all down. My husband picks them up and drowns them. Once in awhile we get 20 or 30 but usually just five or six a night and it keeps the population down enough for the veggies to grow. It's horribly disgusting but very satisfying. Unfortunately, I don't think it will work in a garden as big as yours. Don't chickens help? Can you keep chickens?
ReplyDeleteI found your blog through the wing sowers page on FB! Love it so far. As for slugs... I read recently that using boards, bricks, or in your case concrete blocks to edge your raised beds creates a slug habitat. They like that cool dark shade between them, and the smooth surface is easy on their mucous undersides. I can't remember the site I was looking at or else I'd leave the link for you, but they recommended using woodchips right up to the edge of th beds, and just building the garden bed itself as a sloped hill sort of thing (similar to French intensive beds, I think) because th slugs don't like moving over th woodchips.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Anna! I think that we were surprised at the slugs in part because we had the woodchips everywhere, but we did end up putting traps out for both slugs and earwigs, and that helped a great deal. I think we'll try row cover this year to help with the caterpillars, too.
ReplyDeleteI don't think we can keep chickens, at least not right away. We would need the approval of our neighbors given our deed restrictions. But it is certainly on the long list.