First I thought it was the ants that have taken up residence in our garden. Next I thought perhaps it was the many blue jays that I spied strutting around the place. But now I know the truth....our young and tender garden seedlings are being destroyed by an army of salivating slugs.
Those little slime balls! They are the reason I lost 3 plantings of lettuce from seeds. They are the cause of the disappearing leaves on the bottoms of my pea plants. And my poor beans....what did they ever do to deserve this?!
Its really maddening to see plants that you have nurtured and helped along being destroyed by these bottomless pits of goo. So this weekend, Matthew and I declared WAR on the slug population residing in our garden.
We read up on the various methods of slug control, and came up with a few ideas. They do not involve feeding slugs beer! The beer traps signal defeat to me, and while we may reach that point at some time, for now all beer that I buy is going to be consumed by ME. And maybe Matthew. If he is good and I feel like sharing ;)
The options we chose were 1) Cleaning up surrounding areas where slugs could seek shelter during the day. 2) Spread Sluggo around above mentioned areas. 3) Get some DE (Diatomaceous Earth) to slice the little suckers to bits. With our plan of attack in place, and rainclouds holding off, we headed out to the garden to attack.
We cleaned up the pile of leaves from last fall (the shame!) that had been nicely hidden from view by the playground fence. This is an area that rarely sees any movement, and is a bug haven. Last year we even found what we think was a Hobo spider back there, complete with a slippery looking funnel web. So I was a little nervous about cleaning up out there, but was also determined to declare victory so I got some gloves and a long rake and went to work. In clearing up the leaves and moving some cinder blocks, I did find 1 HUGE slug and promptly threw it into the yard debris bin. I should have smooshed it, but didn't want to slip on the slime that would have remained on my shoe. I also found a TON of black beetles, they had apparently made a nice nest in one of the cinder blocks. I left them alone, in case they eat slugs :) The only other place we thought could be a slug haven was the potting bench to the side of the shed. We don't have access behind or under it, so that brought us to our next line of defense.
Sluggo is a snail and slug bait that is made primarily of iron phosphate. The binding agent is wheat, which makes the pellets more attractive to the hungry slugs. Its not certified organic, because the iron phosphate is an inorganic chemical compound. But its not harmful, at least according the the research I have been doing. Iron is good for our soil, and any uneaten pellets break down and become fertilizer. Sluggo isn't harmful to pets or wildlife (except slugs, HAHAHA!) so I felt safe using it, but not safe enough to place it directly around our vegetables. Instead we decided to put it around the potting bench, and along the back fence in case they were visiting from our neighbors yard. I found a huge slug sliming through our composting grass clippings and rabbit hay yesterday, so I need to sprinkle some Sluggo around those areas as well. If the slugs weren't hungry, we still had one more trick up our sleeves.
Diatomaceous Earth is an all natural and organic insect killer. It is basically made from ground up fossils, you can read more here. When the slugs crawl over DE, it slices them up with hundreds of microscopic cuts, and they dehydrate and die. We sprinkled the DE all around the plants that the slugs have been finding the most delicious. It left our garden looking like a baseball diamond, with chalky white lines everywhere!
Unfortunately, DE doesn't hold up in the rain, and we have yet to see more than a day or two of sun this year. And we are now in to June with no sign of the rain letting up. So I am exploring other options until we can get past all this rain. I have been saving eggshells to crush up and place around the plants, and have also been exploring getting coffee grounds to spread around. I am not ready to concede defeat just yet! I do think our next line of defense should be a gaggle of adorable ducks, since I hear they love slugs and don't damage the garden like chickens will. I don't know that I can convince Matthew of that though!
Other than the slug problem, the garden is doing as well as can be expected with the constant downpour of rain. The cucumbers are hating life, and may need to be replaced, but everything else seems to be tolerating it or even thriving. The potatoes are growing like crazy:
The first planting of super sugar snap peas are around 4 feet high. No flowers yet, but hopefully it wont be long!
Our first block of corn is coming up nicely, we are doing corn only for fresh eating this year, and will be making 3 succession plantings.
I had to go to our favorite nursery for the DE and Sluggo, and couldn't help but make a quick stop in the greenhouse to look at all the beautiful veggies. I twisted my own arm, and came home with yet another tomato (a Long Keeper - so excited to see how these do!), a pack of lettuce since the above mentioned slugs have eaten all mine, and the plant at the bottom of the above picture. Its a Baby Pam pumpkin, which produces small 4-5 pound pumpkins which are great for pies but which we will probably use for decoration come Halloween time. I am swearing off going to the garden store again for the rest of the year....or at least until next week! I am running out of room to plant things!
Those little slime balls! They are the reason I lost 3 plantings of lettuce from seeds. They are the cause of the disappearing leaves on the bottoms of my pea plants. And my poor beans....what did they ever do to deserve this?!
Its really maddening to see plants that you have nurtured and helped along being destroyed by these bottomless pits of goo. So this weekend, Matthew and I declared WAR on the slug population residing in our garden.
We read up on the various methods of slug control, and came up with a few ideas. They do not involve feeding slugs beer! The beer traps signal defeat to me, and while we may reach that point at some time, for now all beer that I buy is going to be consumed by ME. And maybe Matthew. If he is good and I feel like sharing ;)
The options we chose were 1) Cleaning up surrounding areas where slugs could seek shelter during the day. 2) Spread Sluggo around above mentioned areas. 3) Get some DE (Diatomaceous Earth) to slice the little suckers to bits. With our plan of attack in place, and rainclouds holding off, we headed out to the garden to attack.
We cleaned up the pile of leaves from last fall (the shame!) that had been nicely hidden from view by the playground fence. This is an area that rarely sees any movement, and is a bug haven. Last year we even found what we think was a Hobo spider back there, complete with a slippery looking funnel web. So I was a little nervous about cleaning up out there, but was also determined to declare victory so I got some gloves and a long rake and went to work. In clearing up the leaves and moving some cinder blocks, I did find 1 HUGE slug and promptly threw it into the yard debris bin. I should have smooshed it, but didn't want to slip on the slime that would have remained on my shoe. I also found a TON of black beetles, they had apparently made a nice nest in one of the cinder blocks. I left them alone, in case they eat slugs :) The only other place we thought could be a slug haven was the potting bench to the side of the shed. We don't have access behind or under it, so that brought us to our next line of defense.
Sluggo is a snail and slug bait that is made primarily of iron phosphate. The binding agent is wheat, which makes the pellets more attractive to the hungry slugs. Its not certified organic, because the iron phosphate is an inorganic chemical compound. But its not harmful, at least according the the research I have been doing. Iron is good for our soil, and any uneaten pellets break down and become fertilizer. Sluggo isn't harmful to pets or wildlife (except slugs, HAHAHA!) so I felt safe using it, but not safe enough to place it directly around our vegetables. Instead we decided to put it around the potting bench, and along the back fence in case they were visiting from our neighbors yard. I found a huge slug sliming through our composting grass clippings and rabbit hay yesterday, so I need to sprinkle some Sluggo around those areas as well. If the slugs weren't hungry, we still had one more trick up our sleeves.
Diatomaceous Earth is an all natural and organic insect killer. It is basically made from ground up fossils, you can read more here. When the slugs crawl over DE, it slices them up with hundreds of microscopic cuts, and they dehydrate and die. We sprinkled the DE all around the plants that the slugs have been finding the most delicious. It left our garden looking like a baseball diamond, with chalky white lines everywhere!
Unfortunately, DE doesn't hold up in the rain, and we have yet to see more than a day or two of sun this year. And we are now in to June with no sign of the rain letting up. So I am exploring other options until we can get past all this rain. I have been saving eggshells to crush up and place around the plants, and have also been exploring getting coffee grounds to spread around. I am not ready to concede defeat just yet! I do think our next line of defense should be a gaggle of adorable ducks, since I hear they love slugs and don't damage the garden like chickens will. I don't know that I can convince Matthew of that though!
Other than the slug problem, the garden is doing as well as can be expected with the constant downpour of rain. The cucumbers are hating life, and may need to be replaced, but everything else seems to be tolerating it or even thriving. The potatoes are growing like crazy:
The first planting of super sugar snap peas are around 4 feet high. No flowers yet, but hopefully it wont be long!
Our first block of corn is coming up nicely, we are doing corn only for fresh eating this year, and will be making 3 succession plantings.
I had to go to our favorite nursery for the DE and Sluggo, and couldn't help but make a quick stop in the greenhouse to look at all the beautiful veggies. I twisted my own arm, and came home with yet another tomato (a Long Keeper - so excited to see how these do!), a pack of lettuce since the above mentioned slugs have eaten all mine, and the plant at the bottom of the above picture. Its a Baby Pam pumpkin, which produces small 4-5 pound pumpkins which are great for pies but which we will probably use for decoration come Halloween time. I am swearing off going to the garden store again for the rest of the year....or at least until next week! I am running out of room to plant things!
