Keeping Slugs Out of Your Garden

If you live where slugs are prevalent you know the destruction they can cause. They can quickly consume plants and ruin your garden. This is a guide about keeping slugs out of your garden.

Solutions: Keeping Slugs Out of Your Garden

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Use Coffee Grounds To Deter Slugs

I found out by accident one day that slugs hate coffee. I had spilled some from my cup while working in the garden and a slug nearby reversed course and "ran" away from the coffee. So I began saving used coffee grounds and sprinkling them around my plants. Slugs will not go near it! Use only black, no sugar, leftover coffee or grounds. Not only will the slugs stay away but plants love coffee! Coffee makes a great fertilizer too!

By Teresa A from Ann Arbor, Michigan

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Use Cucumber and Aluminum to Deter Slugs and Grubs

To help prevent grubs and slugs from ruining your planting beds, place a few slices of cucumber in a small pie tin and place in the garden. The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drives garden pests crazy and make them slither off!

By cailifouhnofthemist from Williams Lake, B.C.

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Banish Slugs from Your Garden

Congainers of lettuce placed on small garden table.

We have very heavy clay soil here and a lot of rocks in the ground, so we have been growing our vegetables and herbs in containers. Every year, time and energy are required to pick slugs off the broccoli and lettuces, and every year we try different things to keep those slugs away - with very limited success.

This year we put our lettuces on top of some patio tables we bought. When we need to use a table, it's a simple thing to put the lettuces on the ground, always remembering to put them back on the tables before nightfall. This has worked perfectly - we have not found one slug anywhere near the lettuces (or broccoli), and we haven't lost any lettuce or broccoli at all. It has been such a success, I just had to share it with all you nice folks on TF. Give it a try - lettuces and broccoli do very well in containers, by the way.

By Copasetic 1 from North Royalton, OH

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Best Slug Repellent Ever

Get an easy to clean manual grinder (one used for grinding onions, etc.) (Look for at yard sales, second hand stores). Collect slugs (4-5 will do) Put in grinder top with water. Grind up. Put into bowl covered with cheesecloth. Put juice in a 2 Litre pop bottle, top with water.

Use dollar store sprayer to spray the ground or poke holes in the cap and sprinkle the complete perimeter of your garden. (Wear rubber gloves to do this, you will not want this smelly solution on your hands) Repeat process after rain. Slugs (and lots of other annoying insects and animals such as flies, mosquitoes, cats and dogs hate the smell and will go elsewhere. It's inexpensive, VERY EFFECTIVE (most importantly), and less time-consuming than going to the store for slug bait or emptying the slug traps.

I am a bit ashamed to admit I did enjoy grinding the slugs after what they did to my plants, you may experience this feeling too!

Source: I must have read this somewhere but it was so long ago that I do not know where it was. Probably a Readers Digest Problem Solver Book.

By Christine from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

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Lovely Yellow Primula (Preventing Slugs and Sow Bugs)

Here's a sunny bunch of yellow primulas to brighten your day! They are just so nice right now, while the mauve ones are getting done. It is nice when different colors come at other times, so we always have something pretty to see!

Unfortunately, the sow bugs really love them too, but I foung that some Ant Kill powder gets rid of them pretty good! For the slugs, I put crushed eggshells around. You can also spray the slugs with a mixture of half & half Sudsy Ammonia & water. It won't hurt the flowers or plants, but sure gets all the baby slugs hiding in the flowers where mommy put them! I have slugs crawl out of a salting, but they won't from this spray!

By Betty

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Use Copper, Slugs Be Gone!

Having tried everything possible known to man to rid my garden of slugs, I came across an item on ebay that I thought may just work, a roll of sticky back copper tape. It was 2.99 (pounds). It is placed around pots, containers or laid flat on the ground. When the slugs attempts to cross, it they get a tiny electroshock. Great, I thought, now how can I make something similar for free.

I found some old electrical cable from an old kettle. I took out the copper wire, twisted it to make it stronger and attached it to metal skewers which I pushed into the soil at intervals until I had surrounded my flower bed. I made sure the copper wire was not touching any leaves, stones or the soil, but just high enough to zap the slugs should they try to sneak under. It really does work, since then, I have copper wire around my pots and containers too.

The slugs are still out there, thinner and driving themselves nuts trying to get past my thrifty force field.

By Mags from Doncaster, UK

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