Slug Trails

Slug Rampant

The slugs that damaged the potato plants a few weeks ago are not too difficult to manage.  If there are just a few, they can be picked off by hand.  If there are more, a product like Sluggo, which is biodegradable and safe to use around pets, can get rid of them.

Cindy harvested a head of lettuce the other day and found three slugs on the leaves.  Ugh.

We took those lettuce leaves out and put them under the bird feeder to provide a little treat for the ground feeder birds, especially the Brown Towhees, the Spotted Towhees and the California Thrashers.  We don't know who got the slugs, but the next morning both the slugs and the lettuce leaves were completely gone, so somebody cleaned it up for us.

One of the old traditional methods of getting rid of slugs and snails is to put some beer out in a shallow dish; the slugs crawl in, drink the beer and drown.  End of slugs.

However, we won't be using that method for two reasons:  first, we prefer to drink the beer ourselves, and second, we don't even want to think how much damage a pack of drunken California Ground Squirrels could do to the garden.

UC Integrated Pest Management Pest Notes--Slugs and Snails