Fight against slugs in the country. Slug Control Methods: Beer, Ducks, Salt, Barbed Barriers, and Garden Pond

How to get rid of slugs in the garden

Each summer resident can suddenly find plants and crops damaged by pests. Traces of minor damage appeared on the leaves, fruits of trees and berries, as if they were worn in places on a small grater. This is the first sign of the appearance of slugs and snails.

During the day, slugs prefer shady places with high humidity and a temperature of about 18 degrees Celsius. They lay eggs in the spring and late autumn, the ripening period is about 3 months. Let's take a closer look at how to deal with slugs in the garden, and why to do it.

The harm and benefits of slugs in the garden

Slugs are nocturnal, so you can notice that the mollusk has visited the beds only by the silver trail of dried mucus on the leaves and by damaged plants and fruits.

Slugs eat:

• young greens and sprouts of any seedlings;
• fruit fruit trees;
• strawberries and wild strawberries;
• cabbage, cucumbers, peppers.

Slugs in the garden can feed on lichens, mushrooms, fallen leaves, act as a kind of cleaner and help in the processing of organic matter. Fishermen can use them as bait, and some summer residents are specially bred to feed chickens.

Preventive methods of protection

Before using chemicals, it is recommended to try preventive methods, since getting rid of slugs in the garden is more difficult than preventing their appearance.

Slugs in the garden - environmental control

You should minimize the number of dark wet areas, remove debris, organic debris, weed weeds. In the fall, do a deep digging of the soil, this precaution will help destroy the eggs of not only slugs, but also many other pests on the site, as they will freeze out in winter.

Engage natural enemies slugs: birds, frogs and hedgehogs. Build birdhouses for birds, for frogs - small pond, for hedgehogs - install a house for wintering, and lay out the bait, feed it with milk.

If slugs appeared in the garden, nature will tell you how to fight. most economical and ecological way protection against the appearance of slugs on the site - the use of fragrant-smelling herbs that they do not like. Garlic, sage, rosemary are planted along the perimeter of the beds.

Folk remedies to protect the site from slugs

Since it is not always effective to deal with slugs in the garden with ecological methods, folk remedies are used along with them. prophylactic. After planting seedlings, periodically spray the plants with a solution ammonia, vinegar: dilution ratio - 1:6 with water.

Also, mustard powder is used for processing 5-6 tablespoons per 10 l bucket of water. Some gardeners recommend using strong instant coffee for spraying.

All parts of the plant are treated (leaf plate on both sides) and the soil nearby in the evening in dry weather. After rain, the procedure is repeated.

Ways to deal with slugs

If pests have already appeared on the site, apply more effective methods. Before destroying slugs in the garden, prepare homemade traps.

Fighting slugs in the garden with folk remedies

At night, you can leave wet burdock leaves or pieces of roofing material on which mollusks will gather. In the early morning, slugs with gloves or with tweezers, since the mucus is difficult to wash off, and it may contain pathogenic bacteria.

Cornmeal, a deadly delicacy for shellfish, is used as effective remedy from slugs in the garden. Flour is poured into a jar and placed on its side. In the morning, dead slugs and snails are collected, which are carried away from the site.

Slugs are attracted by the smell of fermentation, so summer residents use traps by pouring beer or kvass into containers, preferably dark varieties. Most often, bottoms cut off by 1 cm are used. plastic bottles arranging them across the territory. Periodically, the traps are cleaned of mollusks that have got there.

Pests often damage the berries, but chemical treatment during the fruiting period is not possible, so the fight against slugs on strawberries is possible only with protective methods. Used sprinkling between rows of beds with salt and ground mulching eggshell, small pebbles, shells or pine needles. The salt destroys the slime, while the mulch damages the body of the slug.

Fighting slugs in the garden with the use of special equipment

In extreme cases, 21 days before the crop ripens, a chemical granular remedy for slugs in the garden is used (Thunderstorm, Meta, Ferramol, Anti-slug), which is scattered along the aisles at the rate of 15 gr. for 5 sq.m.

The active substance metaldehyde attracts molluscs and repels birds, but is dangerous to pets and can accumulate in fruits. After using such special means, having harvested the crop, it is thoroughly washed in hot water.

Fighting slugs on cabbage

Cabbage is the favorite delicacy of slugs and snails. Early varieties can be completely destroyed by mollusks during the period of growth and head formation.

In order not to start slugs on cabbage, the fight against them begins with proper fit. Seedlings are planted from each other at a distance of up to 50 cm, so as not to create thickened, moist and shaded areas for the favorable development of mollusks.

For each plant, you can put on a ring cut out of a plastic bottle. The edges are cut unevenly with nail scissors, inside into the neck, cabbage seedlings are threaded. The sharp edges of the plastic will damage the delicate body of the slug if it decides to feast on the plant.

When the emerging cabbage grows lower leaves in contact with the ground, they are cut off to limit access. Also, to protect cabbage, a folk remedy for slugs in the garden is used - nettle or wormwood leaves, which are laid out under heads of cabbage, changing them every day. Nettle burns, and wormwood scares away with its bad smell.

Additionally, for cabbage, control methods such as evening watering are used. hot water(plus 50 degrees Celsius) closed leaves. Plants can withstand this temperature without getting burned, and slugs die.

Spraying with a solution of hot pepper is widespread, for the preparation of which 100 g are crushed. capsicum red pepper. It is soaked in 1 liter of water and infused for 2 days, after which it is boiled and infused for 24 hours. One hundred grams of the resulting infusion is diluted in 10 liters of water, adding soap chips there. Store the solution in a dark, cool place.

Outcome

Getting rid of slugs in the garden is not so difficult. Sometimes it is enough to remove their access to favorable conditions and wet zones. Subject to timely preventive measures and proper care for plants, the question of how to destroy slugs in the garden will not bother, since pests will not appear on the site.

Among the pests of crops there are quite interesting representatives of wildlife. These are slugs, their appearance in the garden puts the summer resident before the question of how to deal with them? And to find correct solution For this very difficult task, you need to know the biology of the pest. With it, we will begin our acquaintance with these representatives of the animal world.

Slugs, the fight against them is especially important in rainy years, belong to the family of gastropods. In the process of evolution, they adapted to life on land and for some reason lost their shell. But this did not prevent them from acquiring many new skills, which allows them to feel great in regions with a mild climate and high humidity.

This strange, slippery and unpleasant creature can be found in summer cottages and agricultural land. They, despite their seeming clumsiness, are able to get into the cellar and even into the house. And they prefer to live where it is always dark, cool and damp.

Appearance and reproduction

In our gardens, we most often meet representatives of the species of naked slugs - this is a rather serious enemy, the fight against which in the garden promises great difficulties.

The appearance of this mollusk is unattractive, like most of its kind. His body is a slippery mass of earthy color. Moreover, the abdomen is lighter, and the back is darker and with a scattering of black dots.

They do best at night and in the evening when the humidity rises.

How can slugs reproduce suburban area. After mating, the female makes several clutches of eggs, 20-30 each. In total, she is able to bring up to 500 eggs. The clutches are usually found in the ground or moss in shady and damp places. After 3 weeks, young slugs hatch from the eggs, with their appearance in the garden, you again have to look for ways to fight.

After all, the development of this pest is very fast and after 1.5 months the young become sexually mature and begin to mate. Under favorable conditions for this species, the number of individuals can increase significantly over the summer.

Slug clutch

Eggs laid in autumn survive the winters in the middle latitudes, and new recruits emerge from them in the spring. This is how slugs reproduce.

As for adults, not all of them will be able to live to warm days. But those who wake up greedily pounce on young shoots of plants, causing them great damage.

They carry various plant diseases. Their body is always wet, rot, bacteria, infections cling to the tissues.

Mollusks crawl out to feed at night. They are most active between 9 pm and 2 am. They prefer to spend a hot day in damp and dark places, under heaps of garbage, fallen leaves, tops of plants.

Signs of the presence of this pest in the garden

It is very easy to find out if pests have settled in your garden and how to get rid of slugs in their garden, you just need to carefully examine the damage on the leaves.

These pests leave characteristic traces on plants:

• Large irregular round holes in the middle of the leaf;
• Similar holes on fruits;
• Mucus and excrement.

These are the main signs that a shellfish has started in your garden. In addition, you can see the characteristic paths of mucus on the stones and paths, and in the evening the pests themselves travel through the beds without hiding.

Threat to crops

The harm from these representatives of the animal world is enormous. After all, besides the fact that they spoil the presentation of the fruit, there is another threat. These mollusks are carriers various diseases plants. Eating greens infected with fungi and passing it through the intestines, they spread pathogenic spores throughout the habitat. Thus causing an outbreak of a plant disease.

Therefore, at the first sign of the appearance of slugs in the garden, you need to urgently look for ways to deal with them. Otherwise, you can lose not only the crop, but also many plants.

Eat 200 types of cultivated plants. Eat leaves, vegetables, roots, all parts of plants

Slugs: methods of dealing with them

Vegetable growers have come up with quite a few ways to get rid of this voracious mollusk on garden plot. They involve the use of a variety of means:

• Natural enemies;
• Lures and traps;
• physical barriers;
• Mixed plantings and mulching.

There are many so-called folk ways getting rid of the pest. Consider the most effective of them.

natural enemies

The absence of a shell makes these molluscs a tasty morsel for many animals and birds. They love to collect pests hedgehogs. Expanding by shady corners garden rotten wood, you will help them quickly collect all the pests. Once a hedgehog family settles in the garden, you can destroy the slugs in a few days. And besides, these small, prickly orderlies will rid your plants of pests for a long time.

If toads and frogs live on your site, and sometimes hedgehogs from the nearest forest come to visit, you are very lucky.

Other inhabitants of suburban areas will not refuse such a treat:

• lizards
• Copperheads.

All of them will gladly help you deal with a slippery and unpleasant scourge. To a lesser extent, but still do not refuse delicacy and poultry. Yes, and many insects are the worst enemies of slugs, including centipedes and spiders. But so that they can protect your sod, try to create for them favorable conditions for habitation.

The advantages of this method are:

• Absolute safety for humans
• High efficiency
• Simple use.

By diluting the purchased preparation with water, you can awaken the microorganisms to action, and by watering the beds with this solution you will be able to get rid of the pest for 1.5 months. The only drawback is the short shelf life of the drug, not exceeding 4 weeks from the date of issue.

Popular chemical agent against pests

Lures and traps

Remedies for slugs of this species are widely represented in the trading network. Most often they are produced in the form of metaldehyde granules. by the most popular brands of this drug are Thunderstorm and Meta. They are the most effective and are used as baits for the pest, leading to its destruction.

In the evening, pour beer, but not to the brim of the trap. At night, slugs crawl into the trap, fall into the beer and drown.

However, the disadvantage of drugs is their toxicity to humans and pets. Therefore, when using these pellets, it is necessary to observe safety measures, as well as store them in places inaccessible to children.

If you decide to use Thunderstorm on your site, do not forget to wash vegetables thoroughly before use and make sure that the granules do not get on the green parts of cultivated plants.

Various traps are safer for people. In most cases, they resemble a bowl, which is covered by a special lid that resembles an umbrella. Beer or fruit juice is poured inside the trap, the smell of which will attract clams from all over the garden.

Once every 2 days, you need to check the traps, remove the pests that have fallen and add the juice.

physical barriers

They are plastic gutters. By strengthening them around the perimeter of the beds and filling them with water, you will prevent the pest from accessing your plants.

Fine gravel, crushed shell rock, egg shells or a special granular material that can be bought in the distribution network has similar properties.

Copper rims or covering material with copper plated prevent pests from getting close.

Video tips: Fighting snails and slugs at their summer cottage

Folk ways of fighting

Competent gardening will not only help get rid of this slippery creature, but is also an excellent prevention of its occurrence in the future.

Slugs are very fond of plants with large delicate leaves. They often appear in dense plantings, especially in wet weather. Strawberries and berries suffer greatly from them.

What to do to protect plantings from these garden monsters?

Slugs are nocturnal, hiding during the day under foliage, plant debris, mainly where there is shade and moisture. Therefore, you should not thicken plantings, remove weeds in time, especially in rainy summers.

Before landing horticultural crops you can make small grooves, on the bottom of which pour, for example, ash or tobacco dust, or lime or ground hot pepper. Such grooves will become an obstacle on the way of the slug to the plants.

Remedies for slugs in the garden and in the garden

You can also save plants by scattering potash salt or superphosphate, as well as other mineral fertilizers around the plantations.

You can destroy slugs with such special preparations as Meta, Slug Eater, Ulitsid, but only if the chemical comes into direct contact with them. It is necessary to stop spraying plantings with chemicals 3 weeks before the ripening of fruits and berries, that is how much time is needed to remove chemicals from the treated plants. Or otherwise they say to observe the waiting periods, and this is a period of decay chemical substances to elements that are harmless to the human body.

Folk remedies for fighting slugs

Harmless to fruits, but poisonous to slugs mustard powder. Dilute 150 g of dry mustard per 10 liters of water and spray all the bushes that the slug spoils from above with this solution.

Slugs are intolerant high temperature, this fact can also be used in the fight against them. It is effective to mulch the beds with a film, especially a dark one. At night, slugs gather under it, as it is very humid there. And during the day, when the soil is heated by the rays of the sun, they die, unable to withstand the high temperature under the film.

Watering with hot water is detrimental to these pests. This can be done, for example, on cabbage. Water is heated to 40 ° C and poured directly on top of the pumpkins, while the slugs die. And cabbage can withstand watering at temperatures up to 60 ° C. It is advisable to carry out such processing late in the evening, it is at this time that the pests crawl out of their shelters onto the foliage.

The old "old-fashioned" method of dealing with slugs: dilute a quarter cup of table vinegar (9%) in a bucket of water and pour cabbage with this solution right on top in the evening.

set up these beer traps

Slugs love beer. Therefore, you can set traps for them with such bait in the garden. From their greed, they simply simply drown in this drink.

You can mulch the soil around the plants with fresh sawdust. Sawdust is best suited for this purpose. conifers trees. Also, many gardeners note that good effect gives mulching of strawberry bushes with coniferous litter.

A very effective way to deal with slugs: dilute two tablespoons of ammonia per liter of water and spray the plants that these pests love with this solution. It is also better to do this procedure in the evening, so that the solution falls on the pests themselves, who crawled out of shelters at this time of day. This solution does no harm to flowers and fruits, but destroys slugs completely.

There is also such an effective remedy for slugs: pour 1 kg of fresh or 0.2 kg of dry pods of bitter pepper with 10 liters of water in a closed enameled or plastic utensils and hold for 2 days. Then boil the infusion for an hour, cool, grind the pods, close the concentrate tightly and put in a dark, cool place. For spraying, take about 150 ml per 10 liters of water.

Slug fighting video

Do you have slugs in your garden? What do you think is the most effective remedy for slugs? Folk remedies or chemicals do you use in your garden for pest control? Please share your ways and methods that helped to clear the area of ​​slugs and snails.

Slugs... These are pests that you can only wish for worst enemy to the garden. All kinds of cabbages, peppers, eggplants, strawberries, salads and many ornamental crops annually suffer from the invasion of voracious molluscs. It is impossible to get rid of them once and for all, but there are ways to reduce their numbers, drive them away from their favorite beds and reduce the damage to the crop.

There are a lot of means and methods of dealing with slugs. And this is exactly the case when more is better. For some, one means is effective, for others others are more suitable. Do you also want to get rid of slugs in the garden? Then from a long list, choose the option that suits you…

The safest and “greenest” way to reduce slugs is familiar to any gardener. This is a manual collection of pests in the evening, when they crawl out of their shelters to feast on our vegetables. The method is effective, but laborious, especially when there are a million of these gastropods, and you are alone. Therefore, among gardeners, the following control measures are more popular:

How to deal with slugs with natural enemies

If toads and frogs live on your site, and sometimes hedgehogs from the nearest forest come to visit, you are very lucky. Feed hedgehogs and toads, put a saucer of milk for them, and for dessert they will definitely feast on slugs from your garden.

Another very popular and safe option the fight against slugs involves the device in the garden of various traps and baits. Slugs gather in such places in “crowds”, and it is easier to destroy a large number at once.

What are traps and baits?

First, slugs are partial to fermented milk products. In the evening old board smeared with kefir or yogurt and placed in some damp place on two stones with the greased side down. In the morning, there will be an invasion of slugs under the board, which can be easily destroyed.

Secondly, beer traps give a good effect. A special trap with a lid or just an old deep cup is dug flush with the soil near cultivated plants. In the evening, beer (or fruit juice) is poured inside, but not to the very edges of the trap. During the night, slugs crawl into the trap, fall into the beer and drown in it. In the morning, the cups are emptied in order to repeat the whole procedure again the next evening.

Slugs are attracted to cornmeal. It is often poured into glass jars, which are placed on their side next to the protected plants. Slugs will not keep themselves waiting long and will run to the jar.

The peel from halves of grapefruits can also serve as a trap. They need to make small holes and arrange them in the beds. Slugs, attracted by the smell, will certainly crowd under the grapefruit “domes” at night.

How to get rid of slugs with mulching

Some impede the movement of slugs or scare them away. For example, sawdust. Sawdust sticks to slippery mollusks, making life difficult for them in every possible way. Coniferous mulch slugs, of course, also do not favor. If it is not possible to mulch the beds with needles, you can lay out several spruce branches around the plants.

Gastropods do not like mulching with nettles. thick layer nettles between the rows will not allow slugs to get close to the culture.

However, mulching works well when done consistently. And the needles, and sawdust, and nettles cake, dry, rot, go into the soil and the path to the appetizing leaves is again open. To prevent this from happening, the mulch layer must be constantly maintained and updated.

Mixed landings in the fight against slugs

Like many other pests, slugs are not too fond of fragrant and spices, That's why mixed landings crops, flowers and herbs, among other things, do not allow slugs to frolic freely. For example, cabbage can be planted in the same garden with thyme (savory) or rosemary. It is good to add mustard to peppers. Along the edges strawberry garden you can plant parsley. Slugs also dislike lavender and sage.

Slug Barriers

One of the most optimal solutions The tasks of How to Get Rid of Slugs are to keep them away from our favorite plants. For this purpose, there are all kinds of obstacles.

Copper bands, copper self-adhesive tape, or copper-coated covering material keep clams from getting close. Contact with copper provides it with a small but sensitive electric shock. On sale there are also plastic grooves designed to be filled with water, it turns out that water is also an insurmountable barrier for slugs.

Young plants are protected with plastic rims or funnels, which can be purchased at garden stores or made from plastic bottles, cut off on both sides.

Slugs do not like tar, which means that any rag smeared with tar and spread around the plant will serve as a kind of barrier. If there is no tar, but there is blue vitriol, you can moisten the rope in it, and then spread it around the beds or flower beds.

Many people scatter crushed eggshells, fragments of river shells, fine gravel, nutshells, or coarse sand around cultivated plants in the hope that the enemy will not pass. However, such barriers do not always work and not for everyone.

The easiest way to deal with slugs - hot water. It can be successfully used on cabbage. In the evening, the water is heated to 40 ° C-45 ° C and the heads themselves and the soil around are watered. Cabbage is not afraid of hot water, but the thin skin of slugs is extremely sensitive to high temperatures.

Eat against slugs and folk recipes infusions for spraying and watering. You can spray plants:

• • infusion of garlic (200-300 grams of garlic are crushed and poured with 10 liters of water and infused for a day, stirring occasionally)
  • mustard infusion (50 grams of mustard powder is dissolved in 300 milliliters of water, insisted for an hour, then diluted 3-4 times)
  • tobacco infusion (pour 1 kilogram of tobacco dust with 10 liters of water and leave for a day. Add a little liquid soap)
  • a solution of brilliant green (1 vial per 10 liters of water)

You can water the plants and the soil under them:

• • delphinium infusion (cut 1 kilogram of dried leaves and leave for two days in 10 liters of warm water)
  • mustard infusion (dissolve 100 grams of mustard in 10 liters of water and leave for an hour)
  • infusion hot pepper(Pour 1 kilogram of fresh or half a kilogram of dry hot pepper pods with 10 liters of water, leave for 2-3 days, then boil and leave for another 2 days)
  • coffee (2 teaspoons instant coffee for one glass of water)
  • ammonia (4 tablespoons per 10 liters of water)

It should be noted that such tools are practically useless when in large numbers pests.

Pollination of soil around plants to control slugs

To make it difficult or impossible for slugs to move towards cultivated plants, the soil under protected crops is sprinkled with:

• • • coffee grounds;
    • Ash;
    • hot pepper;
    • tobacco dust;
    • Chalk;
    • Slaked lime (30 grams per square meter);
    • Superphosphate (20-30 grams per square meter);
    • A mixture of lime with tobacco dust in a ratio of 1: 1 (20-25 grams per square meter);
    • mixture iron sulphate with sand or lime.

Lime is usually sprinkled on the beds in two doses for two days in a row. The first dusting causes the slugs to actively secrete mucus to protect themselves from lime. The second (after 10-15 minutes) actually kills them, since they are unable to give out more mucus.

However, lime and fertilizers should not be carried away. Otherwise, you can get rid of slugs, but overfeed the plants and even ruin the soil.

Killing slugs with salt

Salt is a slug killer. If you don't know how to destroy hand-picked gastropods, put them in a saline solution.

Therefore, sometimes the beds are watered with salt water from slugs, or the soil around the plants is sprinkled with salt, or salt is scattered over the compost heap, where slugs like to flock at night. Again, a rather controversial method of dealing with slugs, because not all plants like the chlorine that is contained in table salt. For example, beets will only be happy to be watered with salt water, and tomatoes are categorically against it.

How to poison slugs: chemicals and biological products

When the number of slugs is comparable to a swarm of locusts and none of the above takes them, it remains to rely on special preparations. Among them are harmless to humans and animals:
- "Ulicid" - bait based on iron phosphate. One treatment at the rate of 3-5 grams per square meter is enough and the slugs will disappear, and the remnants of the drug will be processed by soil microorganisms.
- "Agrozin" - a means to improve the structure of the soil has proven itself in the fight against slugs and snails. The drug is not cheap, but it is enough to apply it to the soil once a season (45 milliliters per hundred square meters).

I have been trying to get rid of slugs in my yard for years. I cannot boast that the fight against these molluscs was particularly successful. but gained solid experience. In any case, I can say which methods of killing slugs are effective and which are completely useless.

To successfully deal with these pests, you need to know what they love and what is detrimental to them.

Slugs, despite their external amorphousness, are able to deal with rather rough food: they have jaws with a sharp edge and a thick grater tongue. Slugs are polyphagous pests, that is, they can feed on many plants. But when there is a choice, everyone else prefers lettuce, cabbage (primarily Beijing), strawberries.

Thanks to the subtle organs of taste and smell, they find their favorite delicacies unmistakably. Slugs are of little interest to onions, garlic, sorrel, parsley and other spicy-flavoring plants.

Let's start the fight against slugs

Completely getting rid of slugs on the site is a hopeless business. It is possible to cover the entire garden with granules of Thunderstorm, Slug-eater, thereby violating the ecological cleanliness of the site, and on next year to see the slippery robbers again on a cabbage or strawberry patch.

Focusing on smells, slugs are able to overcome considerable distances and crawl from neighboring areas, from a nearby forest. The number of slugs can be reduced to a safe level if you know their vulnerabilities, behaviors ...

One only has to look at these slippery creatures to realize that they are made up almost entirely of water. And they need wet conditions to survive. Once in the sun, they try to hide as quickly as possible, and if they fail, soon there will not even be a wet place left of them.

For the same reason, heat is detrimental to slugs: at temperatures above 25 degrees, they die. That is why pests are active only at night when the air is humid and cool. During the day they can only be seen in rainy weather. Dense thickets of plants are comfortable for them, in which it is cool during the day.

Contraindicated in slugs and frost. Adults die already at a temperature of -3 -4 degrees. Eggs can withstand temperatures as low as -11 degrees. As a rule, adult slugs do not survive the winter, and in the spring the population begins to revive from the eggs laid in the fall.

Probably, summer residents paid attention that after snowless frosty winters Yes, if the summer is dry, hot, there are few pests. And vice versa, mild winters, the rains that fall in the summer help the slugs to breed, which happened last season.

In such years, the second generation of slugs has time to hatch. It is for this reason that this autumn it was possible to see not only "fed" mollusks, but also a trifle.

Let's conclude: a large number of slugs at the end of this season does not mean that next year there will be even more pests: winter can drastically reduce their number. Especially if we help her with this.

Late in the autumn, before the snow fell, we will walk with a rake or flat cutter around the site, paying increased attention to those areas where there were especially many slugs. Having stirred up upper layer soil, we will turn out the laid heaps of light translucent eggs with a diameter of about a millimeter. Of course, not all, but at least some of them. Once on the surface, the eggs are likely to die.

In the spring we will continue the fight.

• Try not to create shady wet corners for slugs.
• It is better to water in the morning so that the soil dries out by the evening.
• Do not plant or sow too thickly.
• The soil in the beds where cabbage and lettuce, which are loved by mollusks, grow, should not be mulched with grass, under which the slugs will find shelter, but with compost, humus, sprinkled with crushed eggshells, mustard powder, wood ash.
• Vegetable beds can be framed with plants containing essential oils: sage, mint, oregano, basil, pelargonium.
• You can do the opposite and plant lettuce seedlings next to the cabbage: it tender leaves for slugs more attractive than cabbage. By distracting pests, the salad will save the cabbage. Without waiting for the lettuce to throw out the flower arrows (the slugs lose their love for such a salad), we pull it out and destroy the pests hiding in the sockets.

We will try to contain a plot of plant debris, under the heaps of which mollusks like to hide. And believe me, this is not an on-duty recommendation; it is simply useless to fight slugs in cluttered areas.

A simple and effective trap for slugs

Instead of natural shelters, we will build traps for slugs. Boards, pieces of slate, damp rags, pieces of thick film folded in several layers, we decompose in wet shady places and check them every few days.

Here is a cluster of mollusks gathered under a small piece of flat slate.

Crowds of pests can be sprayed from manual sprayer with a solution of salt or vinegar, they quickly die from such a shower (but it is much easier and faster to crush them with your feet)

Gastropods like to hide under water-filled plastic buckets, such as paint buckets.

In order for the slugs to more readily gather in shelters, the site is not watered for several days, then traps are placed around the perimeter, and the soil under them is abundantly moistened.

It is these traps that are the most effective folk remedy for the destruction of slugs in the garden. You will not completely get rid of them, but you can reduce the number and very noticeably. Just check the traps not 2 - 3 times during the summer, but regularly, throughout the season, otherwise these traps will turn into excellent shelters for pests.

The Internet describes many ways to deal with slugs, but in practice they are of little use. Well, you won’t fill the garden with salt, lime or ground pepper. The same can be said about spraying with solutions of ammonia, vinegar, and so on. Such treatments will have to be carried out almost every day.

I tried to arrange and cans of beer in the garden. For two nights, only a few pests got there. From this I concluded that the love of slugs for beer is greatly exaggerated or even contrived.

Ash helps well, which can be sprinkled on the ground around the plants and the plants themselves. That's just where to get so much of it, after all, it was forbidden to burn fires, and baths are rarely heated in summer.

How to rid a strawberry plantation of slugs

The bodies of gastropods are very delicate and they try not to crawl where they can get hurt on some kind of prickly and sharp objects. Knowing this, some summer residents are trying to protect their beds with the help of needles.

I also tried this option. With needles, I fell asleep between the rows of strawberries and the pests really decreased. Unfortunately, this method has by-effect. The needles strongly acidify the soil and the next year our strawberries all turned yellow.

The husk saves strawberries well from gastropod pests

I had to rake out all the needles and throw them away. Instead of needles, strawberries were again covered with seed husks. The result was about the same. Slugs have become much less. If earlier they devoured most of the crop, now (and this is already 4 years old) most of the berries go to us.

Natural enemies of gastropods

And do not forget that even slugs have enemies in nature: rooks, starlings, jackdaws, hedgehogs, lizards, shrews, frogs, toads. Especially hunt for toad slugs. And if you move a few amphibians to the site, they will save it from slippery pests. In autumn, chickens and ducks can be released onto the site so that they clean the beds from slugs.

Chemical agents for fighting molluscs

Having tried many drugs (not all of course), I settled on the Slug Eater. According to my observations, this drug destroys slugs best of all. Below is a photo document. The spectacle is certainly disgusting, but it clearly shows the effectiveness of this poison.

This is how the Slug Eater deals with pests.

If you still decide to get rid of pests with the help of chemistry, do not scatter the Thunderstorm, Slug-eater granules over the surface of the aisles, but place them in a cardboard rolled up into a tube. The active substance of pesticides is toxic, and it is safer if the pellets do not come into contact with the soil.

Do not process the aisles of the beds where they grow green crops. In other areas, processing is stopped 20 days before harvest.

For myself, I came to the following conclusions:

1. The most effective "wet" traps.
2. To prevent pests from entering the beds, it is necessary to cover them with seed husks.
3. If poisoned, then Slug-eater.

I repeat once again: these measures will not get rid of slugs forever. However, like everyone else.

Watch a video on how to deal with slugs, there is a very interesting tips:

I would be glad if readers share their ways of dealing with these pests or correct me if I'm wrong about something.

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