slugs

[TightenUp]

all over the marigolds and lettuce following a heavy rainfall. will these eventually move on to my tomatoes?

i honestly dont care about the marigolds or even the lettuce for that matter. i only have a few heads of simpson back there. i am only concerned with the tomatoes.

this is my first year with this garden and i've never experienced slugs anywhere else.

[KarenO]

I absolutely hate slugs and the damage they do. Tomatoes aren't their favorite food but they will get to them eventually. low growing fruit especially if it is on the ground are fair game. Slugs hate dry scratchy things like chopped straw for example as it injures their soft bodies so dry scratchy mulch will help keep them out of your tomatoes. slugs love marigolds and I don't care for them much so I plant them specifically away from things I value as "bait" because the nasty buggers will congregate near the marigolds and I can catch them. people talk a lot about saucers of beer but that seems to me to be a waste of perfectly good beer. I have tried many things and strangely whatI find works the best is hollowed out grapefruit halves (eat the grapefruit) and place them open side down in your garden like a little slug hut. leave them overnight then go out in the morning and pick it up and you will find it chock full of slugs. Tie the little rotters up in a plastic bag and chuck them in the garbage. Perfectly safe and organic and it really does work. you may not get every single one but you will thin them out to the point where the damage will be minimal. I wage war yearly with them starting usually in August for me. I win the war.
Karen O

[TightenUp]

i have some straw for mulch but i'm waiting for the ground to warm up a bit. if i see any on tomatoes i'll add that mulch immediately. just about every marigold plant had a slug or two

[linzelu100]

I don't have slug problems in my garden, thankfully, but my mom does, a town over. She successfully stopped her slugs this season, by laying coffee grounds around the plants she wanted to protect and threw in a few broken egg shells. They were eating her pepper plants, but are not an issue now.

Lindsey

[TightenUp]

Originally Posted by linzelu100

I don't have slug problems in my garden, thankfully, but my mom does, a town over. She successfully stopped her slugs this season, by laying coffee grounds around the plants she wanted to protect and threw in a few broken egg shells. They were eating her pepper plants, but are not an issue now.

Lindsey

i read about this. glad to hear it worked as i have coffee and eggs almost every day. thanks

[Rockporter]

I would try Diomataceous Earth on them, seems to me the fine ground food grade would tear them to pieces. Sorry to hear of your new garden problem.

[TightenUp]

i read about that but it washes away after rain. at this time of year it would be a waste

[Rockporter]

Originally Posted by TightenUp

i read about that but it washes away after rain. at this time of year it would be a waste

I use it on the plant leaves as well as the soil surrounding the plant, it doesn't all wash away in the rain and it gets the message out to all the bad guys.

As a matter of fact when I have a trail of ants running around I put it at their trail and they disappear from the area. I don't mind if they go away, they stay away for a while too. I used it in my Earth Box when it had ants living in it. I poured some into the colony and they all took off allowing me to plant the Earthbox within 30 minutes, not one stinging red ant could be found.

[TightenUp]

Originally Posted by Rockporter

I would try Diomataceous Earth on them, seems to me the fine ground food grade would tear them to pieces. Sorry to hear of your new garden problem.

any idea how much i would need to buy to cover the ground around a garden 5x20 feet?

or does it just get sprinkled in close proximity to the plants? i only have 12 plants in there

[Rockporter]

Originally Posted by TightenUp

any idea how much i would need to buy to cover the ground around a garden 5x20 feet?

or does it just get sprinkled in close proximity to the plants? i only have 12 plants in there

Delete-Double post

[Rockporter]

Originally Posted by TightenUp

any idea how much i would need to buy to cover the ground around a garden 5x20 feet?

or does it just get sprinkled in close proximity to the plants? i only have 12 plants in there

I put the DE in a squirt bottle, like a ketchup picnic bottle, and squirt it onto the plant leaves, at the base of the plant and if there are trails I squirt it onto the trails. It doesn't take much, but DE is good for so many other things too. Make sure you don't breathe it in though, I wear a mask.

I used it the other night on my rubber plant that was covered in Wooly Worms and looked at the plant the next day and all the worms were gone. I squirted it onto the tree next to the plant as well with no worms in sight.

Instead of using poison behind your stove and in your cabinets you can use the DE, it is safe for your pets as well. You can buy it at most feed stores.

[lakelady]

The old timers always used eggshells I remember as a kid. I have used that as well because one part of the yard seems to get a lot of slugs. One suggestion, rinse the shells out, and I usually toss them into the toaster oven to cook any raw egg off them before crushing just set it on toast. Otherwise you might attract animals to your garden.

Another trick I have heard is lay a wooden board in the garden and in the morning it will have collected slugs underneath it and you can salt them all (eww, hose it off afterwards) and they are gone. I hate slugs. They love to eat eggplant plants too.

I haven't noticed any near my lettuces yet but they love the walkway along the small tomato garden and I find them on the concrete there all the time after the rains or early mornings.

[EarlyStarter]

I plant marigolds around my tomatoes for this exact reason, as a sort of deterrent plant. The slugs eat the marigolds, and have never bothered my tomatoes....though they likely don't have a preference for the maters. I have also used rough, 3/4 burnt wood ash/coal around the base of some plants and it seemed to work well to keep the slugs off....

[carolyn137]

Karen, above you said why waste perfectly good beer?

The answer is to buy cheap beer.

When I was in Denver I'd buy Buffalo Girl beer, which was the cheapest of the cheap, put some in a saucer and then build wee ramps up to the edge of the filled saucer, and it worked for both the slugs and myself.

They got a few slurps of beer and I eliminated the slugs.

Where I livenow there's a great brook that runs right in front of my home, actually ones has to go over it on a bridge that was built over 100 years ago. And yes, slugs from time to time, but not enough to worry about and yes, they do take large slug bites out of some of the fruits.

But for some reason I haven't heard Freda say there were any out there the past few years.

The brook goes over a 30 ft waterfall and below it's very wet, kind of marshy, all the time, and I'm sure there are slugs down there but it's a heck of a long climb for them to come up near the house and gardens, so I hope they're happy down there.

THe first gift that my one cat ever brought to me was a frog, no mice or voles for her. and I'm sure she caught it below the waterfall and tenderly carried it up here for me, with her tail held high with pride.

She did become a good mouser but never birds, thank heavens, b'c I love to watch the birds and ID them and have many feeders hanging from the overhang on the deck which have to be taken down when the Black Bears visit, but haven't seen any of them for two years now.

Carolyn

[ScottinAtlanta]

Slugs are eating my collards - I will try the DE. Good tip.