Dogbert
Newly Registered
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jul 20, 2014 10:21 pm

HELP! My worm farm is turning into a slug farm!

Hi everyone, I'm an amateur gardener and recently moved to a plot of land that had terrible soil, nothing but clay. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because there was no snail or slug population - not enough decaying matter. I created a bunch of raised beds and added home depot garden soil to those beds hoping that no other slugs or snails would come appear (I don't think they can really travel since the distance between my place and my neighbors is very large, paved and has little to no plant life).

I purchased some worms a few months ago. Things seemed good - I put them in a large plastic container with small holes at the bottom, added a bunch of home depot top soil, and have been adding dead leaves to it for months. I've been taking worms out at intervals and planting them in my raised beds.

However, I just looked under the worm farm and saw to my horror a bunch of filthy fat slugs!
Now, I really hate slugs and have an intense aversion for them - if a slug has crawled on a lettuce leaf I throw the entire lettuce plant away.

So my questions are as follows:

How could the slugs have gotten there?
How deep can they bury themselves?
How do I get rid of them without hurting the earthworms?
Can I use the earthworm soil without introducing slugs to new raised beds?

I've been lucky so far - haven't seen any slugs in the raised beds. But it could happen and I want to stop it before it does.

Thanks!

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13947
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

The slug eggs were probably in the dirt. You can sift out your bin and separate the worms from the other stuff and pick out the slugs at the same time. I would get rid of the soil unless you are also good at finding slug eggs. They look like a coil of translucent beads. Snails and slugs like dark moist places.



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