We drive slugs out of the garden using ecological, mechanical and chemical methods

In wet weather, the question becomes especially relevant for summer residents: how to effectively deal with gluttonous slugs in the garden? These mollusks are able to nullify all their efforts in a matter of days, destroying plantings or severely spoiling the ripening crop.

Why are slugs dangerous?

It is not difficult to detect pests, for this it is enough to regularly and carefully examine the plants. Slugs gnaw through their leaves and fruits, riddling them with numerous small-diameter passages. The clam path is marked with a sticky silvery trail. Outwardly, garden slugs resemble a snail without a shell. They do not have a spine, they are soft and slippery, and their movement is provided by continuously contracting muscles. A nondescript body color - greenish or gray-brown - serves as an excellent disguise for pests, although some species are brighter (orange) in color. A thick layer of mucus on the clam protects its body from drying out.

During the daytime, animals hide in shaded areas where it is humid and warm. Slugs breed by laying eggs. This happens 2 times a year - in spring and autumn. Young pests hatch from them usually in 2-3 weeks. At first, they feed on the remains of organic matter in the soil, but already at the age of 1.5 months, their diet becomes the same as that of adults.

Despite the nocturnal lifestyle, cloudy and rainy weather can make slugs go hunting during the day. They attack seedlings, fragile seedlings, delicate buds, love to feast on strawberries, fruits of fruit trees, juicy vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, cabbage). Slugs also bring benefits, clearing the garden of lichens, mushrooms, fallen leaves and recycling organic matter. Fish bite well on them.

Advice

These mollusks are eaten with pleasure by poultry (chickens, ducks, geese), but it is not recommended to feed the collected pests to them: they can be carriers of dangerous parasites.

Although it will not be possible to completely get rid of slugs (they move freely between neighboring areas), it is necessary to fight them. They are very fertile: the number of eggs that one individual can lay per season reaches 500. Autumn clutches of slugs survive the frosts safely, and in the spring crowds of pests attack plantings. Harvest spoiled by mollusks is poorly stored, moreover, their invasion often leads to infection of plants with powdery mildew, gray mold, and other fungal and bacterial diseases.

Preventive measures

Fighting slugs is a long and laborious process. But they can be avoided with a few tips.

• Monitor the cleanliness of the site. Slugs are attracted by damp soil, so it is necessary to uproot rotten stumps, remove heaps of garbage and building materials from the garden, immediately get rid of sawn branches, mowed grass, dry foliage.
• Periodically inspect basements and cellars for pests. In the fall, mollusks, hiding from the cold, can crawl into sheds and country houses, so they are also checked.
• When planting plants, observe the recommended distance between them. Timely thin out seedlings, weed out. Too dense planting provides the molluscs with favorable conditions - shade and high humidity.
• During digging, break up large clods of earth so that pests cannot hide and lay eggs under them.
• Root out wild shrubs near the beds.If this is not done, the slugs will hide under the shadow of their branches during the day.
• Do not put planks or old linoleum between the beds, which are ideal hiding places for night hunters.
• It is better to arrange the compost pit outside the site, fencing it in such a way as to stop the spread of slugs.

In order to destroy possible clams of molluscs, the soil is regularly loosened. Particular attention should be paid to damp and shady areas. For the same purpose, twice a year - in spring and autumn - it is necessary to deeply dig the whole garden. Once on the surface of the soil, the eggs of the pests will die.

To fight slugs in the garden will help their natural enemies: birds, hedgehogs, frogs. To lure them, birdhouses are built on the site, small ponds with a heap of rotten foliage are built on the shore, houses for wintering or containers with milk are installed, cookies are scattered. Spicy herbs scare away slugs: garlic, rosemary, sage, mint, lemon balm, parsley. They can be placed around the perimeter of the beds.

Improvised means

Our ancestors chased slugs from the site with the help of improvised means, without resorting to chemicals. The main advantages of folk methods of pest control are their effectiveness and safety for plants and soil.

Good results are obtained by using the following means:

• wood ash;
• soda;
• salt;
• vinegar;
• ammonia;
• mustard;
• instant coffee.

Using wood ash will solve 2 problems at once: provide plants with nutrients and scare off shellfish. Sticking to their bodies, it makes it difficult to move, so slugs do not like it. Ash is scattered in the evening and in dry weather. You can do this after watering, waiting for the water to soak into the soil. To enhance the effect, slaked lime or tobacco dust is mixed into the ash. The composition treats the aisles, the soil under the bushes, you can pollinate the plants themselves with it. The procedure is repeated once a week until fresh traces of slugs disappear.

Soda ash is used against pests. In dry form, it is better to sprinkle it on clusters of mollusks, from this they quickly die. For preventive purposes, plantings are sprayed with a solution of soda, dissolving 50 g of the substance in 1 bucket of water. It is good to add laundry soap (20 g) to this composition. They fight slugs with table salt outside the garden (on compost heaps, in basements). It is sprinkled with the beaten path of pests, which will be indicated by shiny traces. This is done in the late evening and only in dry weather.

Table vinegar and ammonia are used with caution against slugs, as these substances can burn plants. An aqueous solution of ammonia is treated cracks in the ground if you suspect that shellfish are hiding in them. It is allowed to spray the beds with it, provided that the liquid does not get on the leaves of the plants. An anti-slug agent is prepared by diluting 1 liter of 25% ammonia in 10 liters of water. To treat the beds, the dose of ammonia is doubled. The vinegar solution is used to spray the plants. Such a procedure is safe for them only if the liquid does not get on the roots, and if it is carried out rarely. You can pour a burning composition of the caught pests. Prepare a solution by diluting 65 ml of vinegar (9%) in a bucket of water.

Mustard powder is also harmful to slugs. They are sprinkled on the soil under the plants. If you insist it in cool water (150 g of dry mustard is taken for 10 liters) for 2-3 hours, you get an effective means for scaring away slugs. They are sprayed with plantings in the evening. The procedure is carried out 2 times a week.

Getting on slugs, strong coffee disorients them, and young pests die from it. If you spray them with plants and the ground under them, its smell will persist for a long time, scaring off the mollusks. The coffee solution treatment is repeated after each rain.

Herbal infusions and mulching

Ordinary plants will help to effectively and safely deal with slugs in the garden:

• garlic;
• sagebrush;
• marigold;
• horseradish;
• tobacco;
• nettle.

If you water the area with garlic infusion, you can forget about pests. For 60 liters of water, take 200 g of vegetables, chopping them on a grater. Horseradish leaves, stalks of nettles, cut spicy herbs are laid around the beds. They create a reliable barrier for pests. But it needs to be updated daily.

Frightens off shellfish tincture of bitter pepper. Grinding 100 g of its red pods in a blender or on a grater, pour 1 liter of water over them. After 2 days, the mixture must be boiled and left for another day. The solution for spraying is prepared by diluting 100 g of tincture in 10 liters of water and adding shavings of laundry soap to it. Store the resulting composition in a dark and cool place.

Wormwood, marigolds, tobacco are used to prepare infusions. Fill the crushed plants with boiling water, after 2-3 hours (you can wait longer - up to a day), the composition is filtered and cooled. Then they are sprayed with plantings. With herbs that slugs do not like, you can mulch the beds. Sawdust and needles will give a similar effect. But the mulch will have to be regularly updated, preventing it from caking and overheating.

Lures and traps

Most often, summer residents collect slugs by hand, and then pour kerosene. To facilitate the process of catching pests, bait is used. They are prepared from half a watermelon, orange or grapefruit. After removing the pulp, make a small hole in the center of the rind. The baits are laid out on the beds with the cut down. Going to the scent, the slugs will crawl under them, and in the morning they can be easily collected.

Construction waste (boards, slate, roofing felt, burlap, rags) are suitable as a trap for shellfish. Having well moistened the open area, put a shelter on top. If a cloth is used, it is additionally soaked in water. You can also build a "house" for mollusks and wet burdock leaves. 1-2 days will pass, and the first batch of captured slugs will be ready for destruction. It is better to collect them with gloves. Mucus is not washed off well, it often contains pathogenic bacteria, and if it gets on the skin, it can cause irritation. The shelter is left on the site until pests cease to enter it.

Molluscs like the smell of fermentation, so you can catch slugs with fruit juice, honey mixed with water and yeast, dark beers or kvass. After pouring some drink into a plastic bottle, it is placed sideways on the garden bed. To give it stability, you can crush its sides or press it on top with a stone. The slugs will not be able to get out of it. The traps are regularly inspected, destroying the shellfish caught in them and adding a drink that tempts them.

Advice

You can use not a whole bottle, but its bottom, cutting it to a height of 1 cm, or dig a glass jar into the ground so that its neck protrudes 1 cm from the soil.

Another effective trap tool is cornmeal. She attracts slugs, but is poisonous to them. Having poured it into a jar or plastic glass, the container is placed sideways on the garden bed. In the morning, dead pests are removed from it.

Mechanical protection methods

Cut off plastic bottles will provide reliable protection against slugs for seedlings. They are put on top of each bush. Transparent cellophane is also used to destroy pests. If you line them with beds, in the morning the mollusks will hide under it. When the sun heats up the soil, they will die.

Crushed eggshells are not to the liking of slugs. Its sharp edges damage their delicate body. The shell is scattered over the beds so that its pieces remain on the leaves of the plants. Mountain flour (diatomaceous earth) is also dangerous for slugs. This substance is a sedimentary rock formed by the fossilized remains of bacillaryophytic algae. It dries the skin of the molluscs, causing them to die.

The path to the slugs plants can be blocked by barriers. They are sold in specialized stores. The finished barriers are made of plastic and have the shape of a groove or wide rim with the edges bent.

You can build a slug barrier yourself by sprinkling one of the following additives around the perimeter of the beds and around shrubs and trees:

• coarse sand;
• drunk coffee;
• crushed eggshell;
• broken shells.

If you mix soot, lime or copper sulfate in them, the pests will die.

Advice

The roots of weeds that have been weeded should be carefully examined. They can hide slugs or ripen their eggs.

Chemicals

Applying chemicals is the fastest way to get rid of slugs. In the fight against molluscs, metal hydride has proven itself well. They like its taste, but this substance causes severe poisoning, as a result of which the pests die. It is easy to use the chemical in granules: they are simply scattered around the area. It is more productive to process the places where mollusks accumulate with metal hydride powder. Here it will act by penetrating their skin.

Of the other chemicals, fresh lime and ferrous sulfate powder are most effective against slugs. You can destroy pests with bleach mixed with oven ash (in a ratio of 1: 4). Some summer residents prefer to sprinkle the beds with tobacco dust. But this method is more laborious. In order for the pests to die, the procedure will have to be repeated several times - the mollusks will get rid of the poisoned mucus.

The use of chemicals ("Anti-slug", "Meta", "Thunderstorm" and others) is justified only in the early stages of plant development. With the onset of fruiting, it becomes dangerous. It is allowed to scatter poisonous granules around the garden no later than 21 days before the harvest is ready. The berries and fruits collected after this must be thoroughly washed with hot water.

It is necessary to fight slugs in the garden, but it is not necessary to completely destroy these pests - natural cleaners. It is enough to significantly reduce their population, and you will not have to worry about the safety of the crop and the health of the plantings. Having found shellfish on the site, you should not immediately rush to the store for chemicals that poison the soil and plants. It is better to use proven folk remedies. There are so many of them that every summer resident can choose the most suitable one for himself.

An integrated approach and the implementation of preventive measures are important in pest control. If you keep the garden clean, regularly loosen and dig up the soil, follow the rules for planting and caring for plants, then you will not have to spend time and energy on scaring off and destroying slugs.