Spring has sprung and so has the peskiest of garden pests
Along with spring will come slugs and snails, sliming their way in during darkness to munch on your seedlings and precious plants. I am loathe to place anything toxic like slug bait in my food-growing zones, so here are some steps I take.
Hunt and kill
Catching slugs and snails is rewarding. An evening slug-hunting with a torch is much more fun than watching TV, especially with kids to help. Since squashing slugs is quite tricky, I use an old jam jar with a lid and simply place them inside to be fed to the chickens or binned the following morning.
Capture
There are numerous traps you can place around your garden. Go for anything moist, cool, smooth and dark, such as old plastic containers, that slugs and snails will crawl into to sleep away the day and which can be emptied at your leisure.
Trap
You can buy or make traps that slugs will crawl into of their own accord and perish. They need regular maintenance.
Cut horizontal slits in the side of a plastic container large enough for slugs to crawl into. Bury in the garden so the slits are at ground level. Fill the bottom of the container with bait and put on the lid to keep out rain. Slugs are attracted to yeast, so an easy bait is beer. Some warm water and a teaspoon each of sugar, flour and yeast will attract them, too.
Poison
If I do use bait, I use an iron chelate pelleted slug bait – sold as Quash and Multiguard. It stays effective as it breaks down, ending up as an essential element in the soil.
Poultry
Ducks and chicken eat slugs and I have had ducks free-ranging in my orchard for that purpose for 10 years. Chickens did too much damage to be worthwhile. The ducks have reduced the numbers of slugs and snails considerably,
but have not eliminated them. Since they also provide eggs, meat and fertiliser, it is a winwin situation.
Banish them
There are numerous barriers that I have tried over the years. I found that coffee grounds, spread thickly and deeply enough to be effective against slugs, were detrimental to my plants and my soil biology. The worms were definitely negatively affected and the slug protection seemed minimal at best. Salt is commonly recommended as a deterrent and, yes, it works, but it is also very detrimental to your soil and plants, and susceptible to rain. DE, diatomaceous earth, can form a barrier but is expensive, temporary and susceptible to rain. I allow my eggshells to dry out, then place them in a sack and stomp on them to crush them into small pieces. Eggshells are calcium based and ultimately good additives for the soil but, once again, need to be applied very thickly and maintained to be an effective barrier.
Copper is now my favourite barrier for all my raised garden beds. Copper tape (available at garden centres) is easy to install, effective and has provided a total barrier for two years so far. My raised gardens are made from Zincalume and I have put a circle of copper tape about halfway up them. Slugs and snails turn back when they reach the copper tape. If a snail makes contact with both copper and Zincalume at the same time, what seems to be an electric current makes them die.
Others have said copper barriers don’t work for them. I wonder if my success is because my copper tape is against the Zincalume, or because it’s upright, rather than flat, keeping it relatively dry.
If all else fails, eat ’em
If none of the above work for you, simply serve escargot instead of salad for dinner. Yes, our common garden snail, Cornu aspersum, is quite edible and (I am told) not bad with a bit of garlic or Bordelaise sauce.