If you have any of those black compost bins, they live & lay lots of eggs in those -- they'll start coming out once it's dark. They often come up & hang around the top for a while to see what's new there, then they'll start coming out the vents to go gnaw on your plants.
They LOVE pea plants! And lettuces -- ALL types of lettuce, but especially romaine for some reason.
From there, they'll eat beans, tomatoes (both the plants and the fruit), strawberries, corn plants & cucumber plants, and probably start in on any forming cukes, etc too ... one of them a few days ago was munching on one of my pea plants and had almost chewed right through the stem!
Asshole.
In the flowerbeds they LOVE to hide in day lily leaves, right in the
main clumps where the leaves join together (it's basically like a high-rise apartment complex) & they'll start heading out at dark.
They also LOVE Oriental poppy plants -- which shocks me because they're so darned prickly, but there they are ... I've now gotten forty-five of them in the last 5 days just in the one clump of poppies This was a bed with lots of poppies that netted me 450 in one day last year! (No, that is not a typo.) Last week, I was watering the areas that had already dried out, and came back to the poppies, thinking, "maybe I should check real quick before I head inside" ... and they were everywhere! AND I had already sorted through the leaves & picked out 4 or 5! But between probably being waterlogged, since I'd dumped a bucket of water on the poppy clump, and it being sun-down, they all came out to play.
Assholes.
They have utterly shredded several of my smaller gladiolas, and they're leaving their chew marks on irises as well. They also love hollyhocks, all parts -- and they're experts at using last year's stem stump to hide in, so check those, too! Same with bleeding heart stem stumps, whether from last year or if some break due to wind or rain, the manage to find them, too.
They're not adverse to eating rhubarb or horseradish either. And of course hostas ... they LOVE hostas, both for food and like with the day lilies, hiding where the leaves meet the main clumps or underneath the low-lying leaves.
So far, they've all been quite small, probably only a few weeks old. I have been unable to find any slugs anywhere near the shredded gladiolas, I did finally find one baby last night in one of my trap/hiding spots, but that's been it, so I'm kinda boggled on that one.
We've had several more rainy & humid few days since I started typing this, and it's been at least 100 slugs daily when I do my nightly walk around my yard. (ick).
To make it easier to find them during the day I'll turn over a few of those solid seedling trays on bare dirt (giving the soil a good soak first so it's nice & moist & shady), or I'll fold up a few sheets of newspaper, dampen them & place them in areas prone to slug damage, then just unfold the paper to check during the day. Plastic coffee can lids work, as do black plastic garbage bags crumpled up and sprayed a bit so there is moisture through the layers.
Some people have great success with beer traps, but I have literally watched slugs crawl in, get drunk & crawl out & go on their merry way, lol, so to me it seems like a waste of perfectly good beer! I also tried the non-toxic Slug-B-Gone pellets, but they just would not eat them, so the pellets just went moldy.
I hand-pick them & drop them in my drowning bucket. I'm all for various critters that eat slugs coming & eating them, but in all my 40-some years I have never seen a garter snake in this area (I grew up less than a mile from where I now live), nor have I ever seen frogs or toads hopping through here, and the crows & magpies scared all the smaller birds away, so it's up to me to protect my food & flowers!
Oh, and the other things slugs love?
Lawn edging.
There is usually a bit of space between the lawn & the edging itself, so they just slip down in there in the morning -- it's a pretty safe bet for them, because who is going to be able to look down there during the day? Well, dribble some water down there just as it's getting dark, and give it a few minutes... they'll start slithering up & out.
I shudder to think of how many slugs I would have right now if I hadn't done a thorough search of my yard quite late last fall. I was outside planting lots of spring bulbs anyway, and trying to cram in as much outside time before the long cold winter set in, doing things like last-minute lawn edging & replacing the edging itself, placing rocks along a new flowerbed, amending soil in the new flowerbed, dumping rain barrels & flipping them over for the winter, etc. I found tons down the lawn edging, they'd created little dens for themselves to over-winter in, kinda beside the edging, in the soil, if that makes sense, there was some under rain barrels, a few under some railroad/landscaping ties, and of course, LOTS in my compost bins! I made a point of emptying them entirely & setting them up in a different spot of the garden and wow did I find a lot of big slugs in those, and loads of clumps of slug eggs, too. I suspect that, had I not done that, I would be having a similar issue to when I hunted (and found) the 450 in one little (10' x 5') flowerbed that had big hollyhocks & loads of Oriental poppies, day lily, and bulb lilies.
THAT wouldn't have been good. Not at all!
To kill them ...
I am NOT a "squisher". Some people love to squish caterpillars & slugs with their shoes or hands, but I. just. can't.
I'm a "drowner".
I drown various pests in a plastic container (usually a sour cream or yogurt container) with a squirt of dish soap mixed in. It makes it so that insects don't float, therefore can't swim, slugs can't get a grip on the side of the container & crawl out, and neither can caterpillars or aphids.
Then I dump out the container underneath on of my huge spruce trees rinse it out. Do this daily or it will STINK. I missed dumping one last summer and it sat in the sun all day, and OMG I gagged just trying to carry it out & away!
NEVER again.
I tried diatomaceous earth (DE) a few years ago, but it got expensive because I had to reapply every time it rained, and it was a rainy summer! One of these days maybe I'll grab a big tub of it from a farm supply store, but for right now I'd rather not spend the money on it.
Are you having slug issues after all this rain? Where do they hide in your yard? Do you have good luck with beer traps? Or have you found a product that actually works on them?I've tried them all, but always just go back to hand picking.
They also LOVE Oriental poppy plants -- which shocks me because they're so darned prickly, but there they are ... I've now gotten forty-five of them in the last 5 days just in the one clump of poppies This was a bed with lots of poppies that netted me 450 in one day last year! (No, that is not a typo.) Last week, I was watering the areas that had already dried out, and came back to the poppies, thinking, "maybe I should check real quick before I head inside" ... and they were everywhere! AND I had already sorted through the leaves & picked out 4 or 5! But between probably being waterlogged, since I'd dumped a bucket of water on the poppy clump, and it being sun-down, they all came out to play.
Assholes.
They have utterly shredded several of my smaller gladiolas, and they're leaving their chew marks on irises as well. They also love hollyhocks, all parts -- and they're experts at using last year's stem stump to hide in, so check those, too! Same with bleeding heart stem stumps, whether from last year or if some break due to wind or rain, the manage to find them, too.
They're not adverse to eating rhubarb or horseradish either. And of course hostas ... they LOVE hostas, both for food and like with the day lilies, hiding where the leaves meet the main clumps or underneath the low-lying leaves.
So far, they've all been quite small, probably only a few weeks old. I have been unable to find any slugs anywhere near the shredded gladiolas, I did finally find one baby last night in one of my trap/hiding spots, but that's been it, so I'm kinda boggled on that one.
We've had several more rainy & humid few days since I started typing this, and it's been at least 100 slugs daily when I do my nightly walk around my yard. (ick).
To make it easier to find them during the day I'll turn over a few of those solid seedling trays on bare dirt (giving the soil a good soak first so it's nice & moist & shady), or I'll fold up a few sheets of newspaper, dampen them & place them in areas prone to slug damage, then just unfold the paper to check during the day. Plastic coffee can lids work, as do black plastic garbage bags crumpled up and sprayed a bit so there is moisture through the layers.
Some people have great success with beer traps, but I have literally watched slugs crawl in, get drunk & crawl out & go on their merry way, lol, so to me it seems like a waste of perfectly good beer! I also tried the non-toxic Slug-B-Gone pellets, but they just would not eat them, so the pellets just went moldy.
I hand-pick them & drop them in my drowning bucket. I'm all for various critters that eat slugs coming & eating them, but in all my 40-some years I have never seen a garter snake in this area (I grew up less than a mile from where I now live), nor have I ever seen frogs or toads hopping through here, and the crows & magpies scared all the smaller birds away, so it's up to me to protect my food & flowers!
Oh, and the other things slugs love?
Lawn edging.
There is usually a bit of space between the lawn & the edging itself, so they just slip down in there in the morning -- it's a pretty safe bet for them, because who is going to be able to look down there during the day? Well, dribble some water down there just as it's getting dark, and give it a few minutes... they'll start slithering up & out.
I shudder to think of how many slugs I would have right now if I hadn't done a thorough search of my yard quite late last fall. I was outside planting lots of spring bulbs anyway, and trying to cram in as much outside time before the long cold winter set in, doing things like last-minute lawn edging & replacing the edging itself, placing rocks along a new flowerbed, amending soil in the new flowerbed, dumping rain barrels & flipping them over for the winter, etc. I found tons down the lawn edging, they'd created little dens for themselves to over-winter in, kinda beside the edging, in the soil, if that makes sense, there was some under rain barrels, a few under some railroad/landscaping ties, and of course, LOTS in my compost bins! I made a point of emptying them entirely & setting them up in a different spot of the garden and wow did I find a lot of big slugs in those, and loads of clumps of slug eggs, too. I suspect that, had I not done that, I would be having a similar issue to when I hunted (and found) the 450 in one little (10' x 5') flowerbed that had big hollyhocks & loads of Oriental poppies, day lily, and bulb lilies.
THAT wouldn't have been good. Not at all!
To kill them ...
I am NOT a "squisher". Some people love to squish caterpillars & slugs with their shoes or hands, but I. just. can't.
I'm a "drowner".
I drown various pests in a plastic container (usually a sour cream or yogurt container) with a squirt of dish soap mixed in. It makes it so that insects don't float, therefore can't swim, slugs can't get a grip on the side of the container & crawl out, and neither can caterpillars or aphids.
Then I dump out the container underneath on of my huge spruce trees rinse it out. Do this daily or it will STINK. I missed dumping one last summer and it sat in the sun all day, and OMG I gagged just trying to carry it out & away!
NEVER again.
I tried diatomaceous earth (DE) a few years ago, but it got expensive because I had to reapply every time it rained, and it was a rainy summer! One of these days maybe I'll grab a big tub of it from a farm supply store, but for right now I'd rather not spend the money on it.
Are you having slug issues after all this rain? Where do they hide in your yard? Do you have good luck with beer traps? Or have you found a product that actually works on them?I've tried them all, but always just go back to hand picking.
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