Let's start a slug count! :wink:

[The Helpful Gardener]

Everybody has heard the beer advice, but few have heard that beer calls slugs from up to three hundred feet away...get the NEIGHBOR to put out beer, THEN flick the slugs over the wall...


HG

[!potatoes!]

I don't know if our drought has broken here or what, but the frequent rains so far have already dubbed this the 'summer of slug' around here - on the third planting of some things. diatomaceous earth is on the shopping list.

[applestar]

Tues: 138 this morning! Drizzling again, too.
Total = 861

OK where was I? Right, 101 Tues evening, 108 this morning, and 85 this evening = 1155 It would've been 86 but my back gave out while I was reaching over the fence and I lost it. The bugger did the now maddeningly familiar "slime down the grass stalk act"

By the way, I can make it rain. Honest, I can. I go out slug hunting and as soon as I catch more than 75, it starts to rain. Hasn't failed yet since I started counting slugs.

[elevenplants]

I've been having a little problem with slugs on my head lettuce, so I checked out this thread first thing this morning...I have found some good advice, but mostly had a supersized laugh to start off my day! You guys are hilarious, especially applestar and cynthia!

Thanks for the chuckles.

Rebecca

[Curly]

I can't believe I'm reading this, while munching my sandwich, hmph. Anyway, I hate squishing and squashing things, but fortunately I don't have to. I was envying all of you for living in warmer zones, but now I can see one great advantage of our climate - no slugs and snails!
We have an invasion of stupid woodticks though, they are the grossest thing. I drown them in the execution jar after picking them off the dogs (or myself, shudder)!

[applestar]

Total as of this morning is 1456. I'm losing enthusiasm -- maybe it's just the headache talking.
Yesterday, I found the mother-of-all-slugs under a lettuce leaf in the New Kitchen Garden where until now, it was slug-free. Then when I was rinsing off the lettuce I'd harvested, I found a cluster of eggs! MOTHER indeed. I really should've taken a picture, but I disposed of them in a panic and didn't think of it until later.

This morning, I'm seeing these everywhere. Are these slug eggs too? They're cream-colored rather than white with a dot like the other ones from yesterday, and somewhat smaller. In the closeup photo's they look like tiny mushrooms rather then spherical to me. But if these are slug eggs, I'm in major trouble because they're everywhere in the Veg Garden. (Sorry the focus is a little off)
[img]https://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll272/applesbucket/Image4123.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll272/applesbucket/Image4124.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll272/applesbucket/Image4126.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll272/applesbucket/Image4127.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll272/applesbucket/Image4128.jpg[/img]

Also, I've discovered that the slugs are climbing my little Cherry trees and eating the leaves. They're newly planted last fall, to be fan or free-form espaliered, so they're only knee high. I knew something was eating the leaves because the budded leaves on one fan-limb were slowly disappearing but I didn't see the slugs until today -- found 10 all together on the Cherries. Immediately checked the Apple trees located by the fence on the other side of the garden and found tell-tale chewed up leaves. Took a bit of searching but I KNEW it was there -- finally found the slimer at the top of a dandelion fluff that toppled over and was touching the trunk.

Oh, they're all over the peppermint leaves too.

[cynthia_h]

Time for some diatomaceous earth, for sure. The little bumps in the photos don't look like slug eggs to me, but I'm not sure I can tell slug from snail eggs. The eggs I have seen that I *know* are snail eggs are translucent and jelly-like, in a small mass, and not individually placed.

Cynthia

[The Helpful Gardener]

I'm with Cynthia; those look more like [url=https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3086/2562460753_65ec2b18e2.jpg?v=0]fungal sporangia[/url] than [url=https://www.meades.org/photos_from_the_garden/slug_eggs.jpg]slug eggs[/url], or fruiting structures. I'm a little concerned about the ones on the lettuce; that would mean this isn't strictly sapprophitic (only breaking down dead tissue). I might let things dry a bit, and I would use my milk spray (1 to ten with water) to knock down the fungus, and I would really not feel bad about iron phosphate (AS, with the kind of issue you are having, you need some help). There are down sides to every answer. Cynthia's [url=https://www.ghorganics.com/DiatomaceousEarth.html]DE[/url] looks good, but only if you are using the right stuff; the pool grade stuff is highly silicate, so it will kill most insects, including earthworms. Hand picking has no chance of collateral damage, but the time investment in the kind of numbers AS is putting up must be pretty prodigious. You have to pick a line not to cross, and for me the iron phosphate is still on my side of the line. But that's me...

Organics doesn't have to be pesticide free, as long as you are using safe products in a safe manner with some forethought, I think that's fine. For instance, iron phosphate should NOT be used right near water as it can cause algal blooms (that's why they are testing iron fertilization for atmospheric carbon storage in oceans). But it is a generally safe product (while Cynthias's warning on inerts is still a valid point). This breaks down to two very common and usable elements, and the laws concerning listing so called inerts needs to change, but in the meantime, AS needs help...

HG

[a0c8c]

Everybody has heard the beer advice, but few have heard that beer calls slugs from up to three hundred feet away...get the NEIGHBOR to put out beer, THEN flick the slugs over the wall...


HG

I was gonna use beer for my snail bait until I saw this. I don't want that many slugs, or snails. lol!


Oh, and I've seen OMRI Slug bait and it's active ingredient was iron phosphate, so I think it's perfectly fine. Just as long as it's not from a company like Miracle Gro, and your use it the correct way.

[garden5]

I guess I'm kind of lucky in that I don't have too may slugs bothering my garden......at least early on in the season. Last year, I planted some crops in the summer for a fall harvest and had a really poor germination rate. I planted the same seeds this year and they all came up, so I'm guessing that it's the slugs that hit them last summer.

[slugkiller]

I found 10 slugs the other night. Not too many though my garden is quite big. I have placed out some beer traps and copper wires, and these are very effective.

[kimbledawn]

I read this thread and two night ago went out jokingly to find slugs I had my flash light and nothing else because I didn't think that I would find more than 5. I could get outside good before I was screaming like a madwoman and scooping slugs in a bucket. 45 Some of my peppers are 3in tall because of these buggers

Apple.. I will never doubt you again..From now on sensei I am your humble slug hunting student.

[applestar]

Welcome to the club