Re: [CH] Slugs

Lorraine Heidecker (lheid@saclink.csus.edu)
Sun, 5 Jul 1998 11:36:28 -0700 (PDT)

There are LOTS of politically correct ways of dealing with slugs and 
snails (I particularly like the one that goes :"bury empty beer cans with 
the tops removed about half full of water so the tops are level with the 
soil and the little buggers will drown" (Emptying the beer cans is the 
fun part - finding the cans stuffed with drowned slugs is also enjoyable!)
Most of them work pretty well and in my experience are best used for 
all-around slug control during the growing season.

BUT, when you situation is truly an invasion (can you walk across you 
garden on the tops of slugs so closely packed together that your feet do 
not touch the ground?) then there is nothing like Deadline.  Get a bottle 
and squirt a line of the purple stuff around all your plants.  It will 
dry to a dark purple line that is not easily visible against the soil 
and, once dried, does not seem to be disturbed by rain or watering.  You 
reward will be coming out every morning and seeing a ring of emply snail 
shells around each plant in your garden. (The slugs leave no trace when 
then die - my provate fantasy is that they quietly melt and so enrich the 
soil thus feeding the very plants they sought to dine upon - there some 
sort of deep message in that.)

One application a season should do it 'tho you may wish to reapply after 
two months or so just to reassure yourself.

Peace, love and peppers

Lorraien 

On Sun, 5 Jul 1998, DICK KNUTH wrote:

> I know that we have had hundreds of posts about slugs ov the last few
> years, but I was never bothered with them in Iowa.  In Minnesota, I'm up to
> my belt in them.  Help!  They are in the peppers, the tomatos, and the
> hosta.  What works best?
> Dick In Eagan
>