Natural Slug Control Methods that WORK!

it's full on war have you come out on a beautiful spring morning and you're going through your garden checking on all your plants seeing how all your seedlings are doing and you come upon one that maybe you've been bathing for a long time just to find it completely demolished and you're wondering what on earth happened to my beautiful plant this is my story this whole spring i have been battling a big pest problem slugs and today i am sharing the different things that i researched what i've used and what has worked for me whenever we're talking about pest control i always want to start with the least disruptive method possible so i'm going to be going through those first what you need to do is to try all these methods out and if all else fails i do have um one method at the very end that i'll share that is always effective but it's always that last resort so the first thing i want to go over is understanding exactly all about slugs um know the anatomy as some would say slugs are part of the mollusk family which falls in the same family as um octopus uh clams snails those type of things uh even those slugs don't have a shell they actually do have a shell it's kind of on their um back here and it's a heart kind of a harder uh area but it's kind of inside the the snail i hope that makes sense nails are primarily nocturnal they feed most at night um so the times that you'll most likely see them is dusk through dawn and they also prefer cloudy cool wet days and so on a cloudy wet day you might be able to go out and find some of the slugs active they avoid dry hot dusty areas and they prefer cool wet moist areas and that's oftentimes where you'll see slugs is when you lift logs up especially rotting logs you'll find a lot of slugs in those areas slugs do recycle organic matter so they're actually a really important part of our ecosystem and so total defamation of your slug population is actually not a good thing and that's why we want to talk about control methods that cause the least disruption in your ecosystem if you find slugs in your compost pile actually leave them there let them do their work let's talk about how you can identify slug damage one of the most uh notorious ways of telling when a slug has been around in your garden is holy leaves and this kill of mine here has has significant damage from slugs but as you can tell the plant hasn't been harmed too bad and so i actually haven't been super worried about this plant um what you do want to worry about is slugs absolutely love young fresh tender seedlings so anything that you've direct sowed and they're just starting to come up they can come through and just completely decimate those slugs dislike hairy prickly and waxy leaves so if you have any of those then you don't have to worry about protecting those as much slugs are known for their silvery slimy trail that they leave behind as you look at a plant that's been eaten on by a slug you'll oftentimes see their trail that they leave behind and that's a very key indicator that slug has snacked on your plant the other thing to check for is their very small droppings that kind of have a pretzel shape sometimes the little black tiny droppings and that's another key indicator that it's been a slug that's eaten your plant if you want to be definitive on knowing what exactly is eating your plants go out at night and check and see if you see any slugs on your plants let's talk about what to do to control them so i'm going to be starting out with talking about controls on their habitat one of the first things to do is to begin if you are watering your garden water in the morning to allow your garden to dry out during the day so that when the slugs come out at night things are dry step number two remove objects and other things in your garden that they can find shelter in such as pots and rocks and wood boards anything like that that they can find shelter in unless you're using that to trap them also keeping the area around your beds uh free of tall grass or things like that that they can find more shelter in another thing is to apply a very light mulch or no mulch at all i struggle with this one because i tend to put very heavy mulch on my beds because i read i've done a lot of research into how important mulching is and so i'm like the more the better and i put a heavy amount of straw on all my beds and as this year has come upon me with my slug problem i've realized that that could be a key factor as to why i'm having a bigger slug problem i am choosing to go lighter on my mulches in fact i've removed some of my heavy areas of mulch in an effort to control this problem because slugs love to burrow underneath that mulch to stay wet and moist i had a fellow gardener share with me that her grandfather always said to hold off on the mulching until things have dried out usually in july and she is a gardener in the pacific northwest as myself and so that is another option is to avoid mulching until the weather has dried a bit which usually june or july some people will use diatomaceous earth as a way to stop slugs the only issue with diatomaceous earth is as soon as it gets wet it is rendered useless another one is eggshells around your plants and i have tried putting that around some of my squash plants they haven't eaten them so maybe it's working i don't think it's the most effective but you could try crushed eggshells let's talk about biological control this is a wonderful way to keep your slug population down is just allowing things that naturally feed on slugs to uh engorge themselves on them garter snakes and uh frogs are wonderful at keeping your bug your slug population down uh ducks and geese love slugs as well so if you have any of those let them run your garden maybe for half an hour to an hour at dusk when the slugs start becoming active ground beetles which are a tiny little black beetle that also comes out at night as well as the slugs do they they burrow in the ground thus their name ground beetle they will feast on slugs as well if you ever see any of these animals and bugs in your garden let them stay don't get rid of your garter snakes or your frogs let them feast on the slugs another control method for managing your slug population is manual control and some people might find this really disgusting um but i have found that for me it is the most effective method that i have used thus far to control my slug population what it entails is getting a bucket of soapy water the detergent in the wall in the soap is what will dry out the slugs and effectively kill them you take that bucket of soapy water i put a headlamp on and some gloves that go out at dusk and i manually go and pick the slugs that i'm finding that are active in my garden put them in that bucket of soapy water and toss them as far away from my garden as i can get this method is very effective because you're not leaving anything up for chance you're going out there and using your eyeballs in your hands to find the slugs and remove them if you don't want to be going out at dusk and collecting the slugs by hand you can as i mentioned before use a board or something like that that you lay out and the slugs some slugs may find shelter in there and then you can collect them and remove them this isn't quite as effective because not all the slugs will find shelter in that board but it is another option now let's talk about barriers and traps in my tomato bed here i have a trap that i set up i actually set it up yesterday and it already has slugs in it so i know that it is working quite well this is what oftentimes people call a beer trap now i don't my husband and i do not drink and so we do not have beer in our home and i didn't want to have to go out and and buy beer so i decided instead to make my own mixture because the thing that attracts um the slugs to the beer is the yeast and so you can actually use a mixture i did a cup of water two teaspoons of sugar and half a teaspoon of yeast that you would use in your bread and i mixed that all together and i poured in this container and that is effectively working and so i didn't have to buy my beer the stink's pretty bad it should probably be changed about every two to three days i wouldn't let it go much more than that what works really well with this particular system that i'm trying here is that it is waterproof and so um as it rains and stuff i it won't be diluting the mixture that i set out i took a plastic yogurt container cleaned it out i cut strips uh three or four hole openings about an inch and a half or so above the base and so that the slugs could get in there and then i i buried the trap um up to the base of these openings that i created so the slugs could crawl in and then they'll effectively fall into the yeast mixture and drown here is another barrier that you can try and i'm trying this out around my strawberry beds is buying copper tape the copper has a reaction with the slug slime that shocks them and they will turn around and not continue going over the copper strip because i'm doing raised garden beds um i could just tape this on and now i do have to say it does not stick to wet wood so i had to wait quite a while for this to dry out before i could stick it on there but it has rained since and it hasn't come off okay so we've gotten to the very last control method that i'm including in this video and i am including this because this is a chemical control it is an organic pesticide i am including this in the video because i do believe that there are times when especially when you're suffering from a large devastation to consider using some minimal organic pesticides but always try to keep that as the last resort follow the directions very carefully and keep it to a minimum this is a product called slugo that is the active ingredient is iron phosphate which is actually a naturally occurring element in soil that when ingested by the slug stops calcium metabolism and they will immediately stop eating and then within three to six days will die it is also a bait it attracts the slugs it is considered um low hazard health hazard to humans and pets so it is safe to use around your garden um in very small amounts i have these cute little slug traps that i bought from a local vendor at my farmer's market she made these and the slugs will go into there and nibble on the uh slugo this is gerald and roberta is in my strawberry bed i think they're really cute so even when i'm done using these as slug baits i think i'm just gonna keep them in my garden just to you know add a little humor to my garden my hope is by the end of this video after you've watched all these different methods that you can help maintain and control your slug population i hope that you have some hope that you can find solutions for your slug problem we are starting to dry up here at least in washington state and so the slug problem will actually subside quite a bit and also a lot of my little seedlings that were tiny when the slugs ate them um a lot of those things are starting to get bigger and so can handle a little more slug damage and so you may notice that it naturally kind of dissipates as the weather warms up so hope you found some helpful information here on controlling your slug population if you did hit that like button and also hit that subscribe button so you don't miss our future videos thanks for joining me today go out and grow something and control those slugs god bless [Music] you

Channel: Sanctuary Gardens

Views: 23,880

Keywords: pest control, slugs, slugs in the garden, how to control slugs in the garden, slug control, how to get rid of slugs in the garden, garden slugs, snails, snails in the garden, natural slug control, organic slug control, slug control organic, slug control natural, natural slug control methods, how to get rid of slugs in the garden naturally, controlling pests in the garden, how to control slugs, get rid of slugs naturally, gardening, garden pests, natural snail control

Id: p2b8OD-KKmE

Length: 11min 45sec (705 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 13 2022