My little garden of spinach, basil, squash, peppers, mint and cilantro has been growing like mad. I carefully water, weed and feed this garden on a daily basis. Growing your own vegetables and herbs, I find, very rewarding. I haven't had much problem with rabbits or other critters eating my produce but I've noticed slugs on the plants making holes on the leaves.
I do not want to use insecticides to get rid of them especially since the garden is small and manageable. I've read that there are two ways to keep the slugs at bay.
1) Crush up egg shells around the plants. The slugs will not crawl over the rough shells.
2) Fill a saucer with beer and place it in the garden. The slugs are drawn to the beer, climb in the basin and drown.
My husband enjoys a beer once in a while. He doesn't drink much. A twelve pack will last for months. I buy him what I call "Bonaire beer" which is basically heineken.
I hate to use heineken to bait the slugs because it is a "high end' la de da beer.
So I walked into a liquor store in pursuit of the cheapest beer in order to fill the basins.
I grabbed some shit-no-name beer and the clerk smirked at me saying, "oh, a big spender!".
I quietly answered,"I'm buying it for slugs".
With one raised eyebrow, the clerk replied, "well, that's not nice thing to say about your friends".
True story.
Good one! Let us know if it works... I've heard rock salt works too, but that's gotta smart a little if your entire body is one giant mucus membrane.
ReplyDeleteGross!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe slugs love the beer and then the skunks eat the beer infused slugs.
I guess that is where the expression comes from "drunk as a skunk".