17 Non-Toxic Slug Control Methods

NON-TOXIC SLUG CONTROL CAN BE A REAL CHALLENGE,

…especially if you have pets or young children and you don’t want to use poisonous slug/snail pellets.

Therefore to salvage your plants, you might want to use one (or more) of these 17 non-toxic slug control methods to immediately control or kill these slugs (or snails).

Garden slugs and snails love tender-leaved plants — any plants: vegetables, herbs, or even flowers. So if your plants have no more leaves or your tender stems have disappeared and, in addition, you see tiny shiny slimy trails on the ground or on the foliage, you have been visited by either slugs or snails– and the sooner you use slug control or slug killer the better. So to help you get rid of your slugs or snails…

Here are 17 non-toxic slug control methods that can help you either control or kill these pests.

1. The first time I ever had to use slug control they were in the process of eating all my marigolds. As I did not want to use the slug pellets, I decided I would try getting rid of these pests by hand-picking them off the plant.

Knowing the snails would come out after the sun had disappeared for the night, I would use a flashlight and go about handpicking the slugs and throwing them in a pail of sudsy water. However, these little pests are smart; I had no sooner dropped them in the bucket of water, they would try to swim to the edge and climb up and out of the plastic pail. Especially the older mature ones had to be watched.

I learned to fill only 1/3 or 1/4 of the pail with water so that I could better see those who were trying to get out and flick them back into the pail. I soon realized this was not my favorite method of slug control.

(I did not like the feel of the snail’s slimy stuff left behind on my hand, so instead of using my bare hands to grab the snail, I would use a small trowel to pick up the snail or use a stick to flick the snail into the pail of sudsy water. Another option would be to wear a pair of those thin white plastic gloves if I wished to use my fingers to pick the snail off the plant).

2. A second slug control method is popularly known as the beer trap; that is, drowning slugs/snails in beer or a yeasty concoction. (Beats handpicking them!!)

The idea is to attract the slugs to the beer container which is sunk into the ground to almost ground level. When the slugs come into the container and try to reach the liquid, they fall into the beer and the alcohol in the beer destroys their body tissue.

Remember though: Nobody likes stale beer — not even the slugs. Mike McGrath, Organic Gardening, says that if you want to use beer to trap your slug, you must replenish it every day. He adds that slugs are repulsed by stale beer, that they prefer “really cheap yeasty beers”!

Alternate mixture: Instead of beer, you can make your own Yeast and Honey Mixture which can be even more effective: Boil some yeast and honey in water. The proportions aren’t very critical. Just mix some up, boil, cool, and use. OR…

Mix one tablespoon of yeast and one tablespoon of sugar in a little bit of water and leave in a warm room (for three days if necessary) until bubbles form in the mixture before using it.

Directions for beer trap:

A. Find a clean plastic margarine or deep yogurt container or any other plastic container at least 3 inches deep. The more container you can put below ground level the better. You don’t want these smart slugs to crawl out again.

B. Cut windows one inch high by two inches wide on each side of the container about one-half inch below the rim.

C. Bury the prepared container in your garden so that the windows are about 1/8 of an inch above the ground to prevent helpful ground beetles from falling in.

D. Fill the dish about half with the prepared liquid bait: unpasteurized draft beer, beer alone, or a concoction made with yeast and honey or yeast and sugar.

E. Empty out and refill the container with a fresh concoction or beer every two or three days. (Be sure you don’t have a pet who loves beer)

3. A third slug control trap can be made by taking an old hose or piece of tubing, cutting it into sections about 2 ft long, and leaving these sections in different areas where you have problems. In the morning, empty these sections of the tubing by holding them over sudsy water in the bottom of a high plastic pail and tapping on the tubing or hose until all slugs have been forced out into the sudsy water.

4. A fourth slug trap that can be used for slug control and which I have used a lot was to place large boards between my garden rows so that I could walk on them in order to avoid compacting my soil too much. Every day, (morning and sometimes night) I would check underneath these boards and would dispense of any snail found there.

This slug control method (which also works for getting rid of snails) was not only easy to maintain but also brought results. After a while, I would get maybe only one or two a day, so the population gradually diminished.

5. If you have a raised garden, you can always use inverted flower pots along its edge to trap the slugs when they want to get away from the hot sun. Arrange the pot so that it is slightly raised on one side or overhanging a bit so that the slug can slither into it whenever the sun comes up and it needs a place to hide. Then do the rounds, collect the slugs, and drown them in sudsy water in a deep pail.

6. A different slug control method is to use wood ashes on the ground. Wood ashes are a good slug deterrent, for slugs will not crawl over wood ashes.

Note: It must be clean wood ashes. Avoid using painted, varnished, glued-together such as plywood, or tinted wood to create your ashes.

7. Another slug deterrent is to use crayola chalk. Snails will not cross a thick chalk line.

8. Snails also hate crawling through salt but avoid using salt on the soil or on the plant itself for it can damage your plants. Salt might be a good slug control option as a barrier on a cement walkway or patio stones along the edge of your bed of plants.

9. Here’s a different method that can be used for slug control: Zap slugs safely — with a mixture of non-sudsing ammonia and water. It is much better than the salt mixture that some books recommend, for salt can harm the soil and/or your plants.

In a spray bottle make a solution of 1 part ammonia to 2 parts water. You can also make it 1 part ammonia to 4 parts water, or even 1 part ammonia to 10 parts water. The general consensus seems to be that 1 part ammonia to 4 parts water works best; however, always test to see how your plants react to the ammonia solution; then mix accordingly.

Whenever you see a slug, zap it with the solution and the slug disintegrates in seconds. If you have delicate flower petals, first knock the slug to the ground with your bottle, then spray it.

10. Use copper barriers as a slug control method: – copper shocks slugs.

Since the copper tape you buy in the gardening store is rather expensive, check whether in your area there is a sheet metal shop where they make air-conditioning ducts, flashing, rain gutters, etc. If so, ask them if they have any scrap left over from jobs. They may sell these scraps to you by the pound.

Try to find copper strips from 4 to 6 inches wide and as long as possible. Then push the copper strip upright into the ground around each plant so that half is above the soil level and half is below. This copper barrier is extremely effective, for slugs stay away from it as though it were an electric fence. The wider the barrier the better, for the slugs cannot “hump” over these wide 4 to 6 inch strips of copper.

11. Another slug control alternative that destroys the slug is to take human hair clippings which you could probably get from your hairdresser or barber and surround your plants with them. When slugs try to crawl across human hair, they get all tangled up; they then strangle and die. In addition to stopping slugs from getting to your plant, human hair has the benefit of being a great fertilizer, for it contains a lot of nitrogen. Do I dare say that hair clippings are free?

12. Snails and slugs don’t like crawling over abrasive surfaces; therefore, you can protect young plants by taking extremely rough sandpaper, cutting out a size at least as big as a CD or an old 45 RPM record, and cutting out the center as you would for a doughnut. Then place this piece of sandpaper as a collar around the plant. This is a slug control method that works well as a deterrent.

13. Another slug control method, this one a killer of slugs, is diatomaceous earth which is made of tiny skeletal remains of tiny prohistoric sea creatures called a diatom. The shells of these single celled fossils are broken down during processing into needle-like silica particles that like sandpaper can penetrate the bodies of insects on contact.

Just spread some diatomaceous earth on the ground around your plants. If it rains, you must replace this diatomaceous earth.

Using diatomaceous has some drawbacks in that it cannot discriminate which bug is good and which is a bad bug. Therefore although it isn’t harmful to the environment, it can be harmful to beneficial bugs including earthworms.

14. You can diminish the slug population by at least 75% if you water your garden in the early morning rather than at night. Slugs feel comfortable when the environment is moist, so if you water in the morning, the soil and plants will have dried by evening, so your garden will not feel so attractive.

15. Another habit that will help slug control immensely is to till your soil in the fall. Tilling your soil tears apart the slugs’ winter habitat; therefore young slugs cannot reach adulthood and restart the cycle. Also what was to be their food is spread all over, so the slugs end up starving or being killed off by the winter weather.

16. One method of slug control which recently came to my attention is changing the pH of the soil by making it more alkaline will deter the slugs/snails; they like it acidic. Garden lime will do the job if sprayed on a lawn or around your garden.

NOTE, however!!! You can burn your garden or your lawn by adding too much lime. So please, please, go easy. Check your directions and check with your nursery owner to make sure you will not overdo it.

17. If worse comes to worst, you can always use the slug control method my friend used. You can always get your child to collect the snails and give them a penny per snail they collect. Her daughter ended up with pails of snails, and now there’s not a snail to be found in her yard.

There you are — 17 different methods that can be used to diminish and/or get rid of slugs – and snails for that matter. Hopefully at least one of these non-toxic slug control suggestions will be of use to you,