marlboro180
Lieutenant Junior Grade
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2009
- Messages
- 1,164
Our gardens here at the shack have been under siege from those slimy little slugs. We planted the veggies early enough this year , but they were not doing well at all due to an onslaught of slimy hungry beasts. The hostas,the echinacia, just about everything green was gettin chewed on..
Mrs. M and I are not into putting any kind of herbicides/ pesticides or even fertilizers on the ground, but this small battalion of slugs had us on the ropes. I went out and got a few pounds of Sluggo ( iron phosphate) spread it around the bases of the plants ,in the beds, etc. and things were looking much better for this past couple weeks. Numbers were way down , and the plants perked up quite a bit, until this past weekend.
The hostas got hit really hard, and the maters took a pretty bad hit Sunday, they all now look like swiss cheese.. So, it was time to break out the the beer and cups for slug traps. I put 6 of those plastic red party cups in a few areas, sunken in the dirt a bit, and proceeded to fill them with some old stale beer ( 3 cans total) and a dash of yeast for good measure. This usually works great.
I did not really think too much of anything else, other than looking forward to seeing some dead drunk slugs later on that night. I then went to a friends to check out a nice trolling motor , came home, split some wood, sweated, split some more wood , got tired, and then finally cracked a beer for myself. Ahh, that was nice...
The beer reminded me to go out and check on the slug traps. OOOHHHH I was so excited to find they were doing their job.... But they were all empty!
In my absence, Mrs. M had let our dogs out to play for a while, and on further inquiry she was wondering why they were acting goofy and really affectionate! I told her about the beer traps being empty , and we let the dogs out and watched where they went.... Straight over to the gardens, looking for more beer!
Well, now I have to fashion some sort of cap or cover for the traps that will let slugs in , and keep thirsty dogs out.The dogs are fine today, they sure slept well though!
Mrs. M and I are not into putting any kind of herbicides/ pesticides or even fertilizers on the ground, but this small battalion of slugs had us on the ropes. I went out and got a few pounds of Sluggo ( iron phosphate) spread it around the bases of the plants ,in the beds, etc. and things were looking much better for this past couple weeks. Numbers were way down , and the plants perked up quite a bit, until this past weekend.
The hostas got hit really hard, and the maters took a pretty bad hit Sunday, they all now look like swiss cheese.. So, it was time to break out the the beer and cups for slug traps. I put 6 of those plastic red party cups in a few areas, sunken in the dirt a bit, and proceeded to fill them with some old stale beer ( 3 cans total) and a dash of yeast for good measure. This usually works great.
I did not really think too much of anything else, other than looking forward to seeing some dead drunk slugs later on that night. I then went to a friends to check out a nice trolling motor , came home, split some wood, sweated, split some more wood , got tired, and then finally cracked a beer for myself. Ahh, that was nice...
The beer reminded me to go out and check on the slug traps. OOOHHHH I was so excited to find they were doing their job.... But they were all empty!
In my absence, Mrs. M had let our dogs out to play for a while, and on further inquiry she was wondering why they were acting goofy and really affectionate! I told her about the beer traps being empty , and we let the dogs out and watched where they went.... Straight over to the gardens, looking for more beer!
Well, now I have to fashion some sort of cap or cover for the traps that will let slugs in , and keep thirsty dogs out.
The dogs are fine today, they sure slept well though!
