From: janie Date: Sun Feb 9, 2003 2:41 am Very interesting this...now, If only I could find the enemy of the slug! Here in the great northwest, it is our worst garden enemy! Whomever says to plant marigolds to deter them was nuts cuz one voracious slug can lamblast several a nite, they seem to adore them! I've tried handpicking (shudderand a clothespin for the nose!), I've done the chop chop with my hand cultivator, stAnding on my small front porch like it is a crows nest from a sailing sloop...spying them as the nite approached and the temps cool, zealously running out and "cutting" them off before they reached my plants! I've ran around afore a salting each and every one acounting them as I went...you know! ...like 7 flys with one blow type of thing...I know it's strange to think of this very heartily built country gal choosing such a sport! But I assure you, I am good! ..........but alas, thery are many! .....Leaving them pans of beer? Yeah right...there are a gazillion sluggy poopoos around here! I'd go broke! Ok, we used to run around each nite and morn with small hand shovels and a bucket, competiong to see what our totals each day would be...then dump them in our duck's pen! poor wee ducks! They'd do their level best, but there were only two of them and they were slowly outmatched...poor bills glued together, craws so large they couldn't keep their balance! (NO< we didn't give them the beer guzzlin slugs!) Ok, rough gravel, and beauty bark supposed to discourage them? HAH! yeouuu! you should see the slime trails! Ok, some copper outlining the garden's edge? I know they look like awful dumb creatures, but give them a way and they'll find it...under, over...you know the story! I made some great slug traps out of 2 liter pop bottles! But Pppeeeeeeeeeeeeuuuu you had to replace them every otherday (ever smelled concentrated dead slug goop?) And I couldn't drink the sodafast enough and the job of collecting the few who took the dare was such a unappealing job that I lost my enthusiasm of the hunt! So,,,deadline! I know,I know...you are all cringing! I'm SO SORRY! I had no where else to turn! I was run ragged, dreaming of slug murders, mass murders! It was a nightmare! Ooooooooooooou! Help me! I'm being attacked! By the slug masters! ooou yuck!muck, aaarggggggh! Quick, before slug season opens again....tell me....what oh what should I do? Please saveme from the sluggies, the slimy munsters! Janie ******************************************************************** From: "Jon Date: Sun Feb 9, 2003 2:56 am Collect a passel of them and run them thru your blender (don't use the one in your kitchen!) with that slurry, dump it into a 5 gal bucket of raw water (not city water) and a half cup of cooking oil. Let it sit in the sun for about 4 hours, strain it, then use that water 1 pint to each gallon of water, and spray it on the live slugs. Bugs carry in their own bodies the germs and disease that will kill them. Once you blend the bugs it releases the diseases in their bodies which begins feeding off their dead bodys once the sun warms your mixture. The spray attacks the outside of their bodies where there is nothing to prevent the germs/diseases from killing them. One by one. ******************************************************************** From: GardenLivin Date: Sun Feb 9, 2003 8:23 am Well, Janie, it really does seem like you've given it an incredible effort there, dealing with the slugs. You probably encounter more in a day than I do in the whole season in my garden so I'm not the best to try to offer advice. :) But I will anyway, just in case- there's that remote possibility that I might be helpful. (hey - it happens once in a while!) Okay, I read through the list of what you've done. Here are two things that I didn't see there. Don't laugh - but I've read that if you turn over cantaloupe halves (or other melons, too, I guess) the slugs will migrate there and you can just pick them up and throw them out. Granted, you'd need a lot of cantaloupes to deal with your slug population, but hey - at least cantaloupe is better for you than soda! :) In the same concept, though, I've read that if you leave a board out there they will also migrate to the bottom of the board and then in the morning you can go out get them from there and dispose of them. Or turn them into Slug Juice like Jon recommended. :) It would seem like the board in the garden would be the way that would collect the most of them. Then you're just left with the gross (in my opinion) job of cleaning them off in the morning. :) ******************************************************************** From: "Dee Date: Sun Feb 9, 2003 8:56 am I have gardened for 10 years right here and NEVER saw a slug one, until I planted hostas last year! They are like a beacon, calling slugs to the garden, I swear! Don't know where they came from, but I smooshed every one I found last summer near the hostas. If they come again this year, the hostas go! I'll give them to best-est friend Mary--let her wrangle slugs. (oh! that sounds evil, doesn't it ******************************************************************** From: "cynthia Date: Sun Feb 9, 2003 10:48 am The innocuous and very beautiful firefly is the natural enemy of the slug. Their larvae eat them! Also decollate snails, with the beautiful shells, are meat eating snails which eat slug and snails that eat your veggies. Chickens love them, although it is rather nauseating to watch them play tug of war...Blech. And I noticed after spraying predatory nematodes that my slug problem REALLY started to vanish. ********************************************************************