Slugs and Snails
Slugs and snails are closely related members of the mollusk family and are notorious garden pests. One of their very favorite foods are young and tender seedlings.
Slugs and snails can be controlled with commercial products found in most garden centers. Organic control is very easy and won't contaminate the garden
with lingering pesticides. The three methods listed below will describe safe and simple methods of control.
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A young Leapard Slug
Limax Maximus, crawls
over a tray of seedlings.
Slugs are a favorite
food of ducks, frogs and toads!
The Drunken Slug
Slugs are attracted to the scent of beer....it is irresistable to them. Take an empty tuna tin and bury it up to its rim in the garden, fill the empty tin halfway up with cheap beer. Let it sit out in the garden overnight. The next morning you will find it full of drowned slugs. They enjoyed their drink, got so tipsy that they couldn't crawl out and drowned in the beer. Empty the tin, reset it into the soil and fill with beer to reset the trap.
Plank and Vinegar
Set a wooden plank onto moist garden soil. It will provide cool shelter for slugs and snails. Simply turn it over to find the hiding pests. Squirt them with kitchen vinegar. The vinegar will kill the slugs and snails. Scrape the dead pests away and place the plank on another area of ground. Turn it over the next day and squirt the newly trapped slugs and snails.
Crushed Egg Shells
Save your empty egg shells and crush them to a course grit. Sprinkle the grit on the soil around your seedlings to create a protective barrier. The sharp edges of the crushed shells are painful to slugs and snails and they will avoid crawling over them.
By M. L. Flint, UC IPM Program/Entomology, UC Davis
Editor: B. Ohlendorf, Technical Editor: M. L. Flint
UC ANR Publication 7427
IPM Education and Publications, University of California Statewide IPM Program
By David J. Shetlar
Ohio State University FactSheet HYG-2010-15
Revised from the original FactSheet compiled by Richard L. Miller, Extension Entomologist Emeritus and Alan W. Smith, Graduate Extension Research Associate, 1988.
By C.R. Ellis and C.W. Rathwell
University of Guelph Pest Diagnostic Clinic FactSheet PDCF-034
