Thanks to the wet weather, the slugs have come out in force in my May garden. I pulled three off my "maypop" passiflora this morning -- damage had already been done, as you can see in the above photo. The kohlrabi, below, looks like it was a delicious midnight snack for these pests. Hopefully the young plants will bounce back, but the leaf damage on the kohlrabi was pretty extensive.
Mama's goin' to the corner store tonight and pickin' up some PBR. I'll sink the cutoff ends of plastic bottles into the ground and fill them with the beer. Some books advise using saucers, but the only spare saucers I have are from my mother's old china. It all seems a bit too frou-frou to lay elaborately decorated dinnerware around the backyard. Recycled plastic will do. I also make morning rounds on the slugs' favorite plants and handpick them. The beer and daily vigilance has worked well in the past, but the general clamminess of the past few weeks may require a more aggressive approach -- I recently read that coffee grounds are an effective deterrent. I certainly have a steady supply of those. I may not be trapping my slugs with craft beer, but I can battle them with fair trade beans!
I have a lot of slug magnets, veggie, hosta, etc., so I finally resorted to a granular made by Espoma, non-toxic to animals and can be used on the vegetable garden. The best thing it is rain resistant and lasts a very long time.
ReplyDeleteEileen