Slugs are a gardener’s worst nightmare. These little pests can wreak havoc on your garden, leaving slimy trails and destroying plants. Slugs can be difficult to control once they infest your garden bed and seem to love moist environments. It’s important to take steps early on, so you don’t have a slug problem this season or next year! Luckily there are many natural ways to keep slugs out of your garden without using pesticides or harmful chemicals—here’s how:
Plant Slug-Resistant Plants
Plants that are resistant to slugs and snails can be found at most nurseries. You may want to plant common plants: lavender, rue, thyme, marjoram, oregano, and yarrow. Any fragrant plant is a turn-off for these slimy pests. They also dislike plants that are fuzzy or furry.
Encourage Natural Predators
Slugs are a favorite food for many animals. Frogs love them, as do birds and other insects, like beetles.
You can naturally control slugs by building a “beetle bank” for large areas or a “beetle bump” for smaller areas. The process is the same either way. You can build a beetle bump by burying a shallow container with woody material and water in the ground. You could also carve out a furrow for the same purpose. A colorful collar of flowers, leaves, sticks, native grasses, sledges, and native plants will do the trick around this area will bring the beetles right to you.
Sprinkle Crushed Eggshells
Save your crushed eggshells and scatter them around your garden. This will help repel slugs and snails from returning for a second helping from your garden! However, you’ll need a lot of eggshells for large areas, and they must be crushed a bit so that they’re small and sharp. Crush them with your fingers or pulse them for a couple of seconds in the food processor to chop them up.
Try Diatomaceous Earth
Diatomaceous earth has been used to kill slugs. Diatomaceous earth is a powder that is very sharp, and it cuts through the skin of slugs. But diatomaceous earth gets wet and then it doesn’t work. Who has time to put it around the plants again after every rain or dewfall?
Make a Homemade Slug Repellent
Did you know you can make your own homemade slug repellent with common kitchen ingredients?
- Boil vinegar in a saucepan for five minutes and add some hot pepper. Keep the mixture boiling until it’s reduced to one cup of liquid.
- Pour the solution into an old coffee mug or jar, let it cool down, then place these homemade slug repellents on your plants every day during wet weather.
Surround the Area with Copper Strips
You can use a copper strip around the perimeter of your garden to keep slugs away. When they come across the copper, which reacts with their slime, it shocks them. This way you don’t have to spray or touch slug bait and you only need to use a small amount of copper.
In order to keep slugs out of your raised bed, make a copper collar by stapling or nailing a strip of copper tape around the top edge. This also works for containers. Put the tape just inside the rim on the top of the pot.
Add Crushed Gravel or Sand
Put down a layer of gravel or sand on top of the soil in areas where slugs are more likely to be found. You can make a circle around certain plants, garden beds, or your entire garden area. This will help because slugs cannot cross these barriers.
Set Out Non-Alcoholic Beer
Place pots filled with beer at intervals throughout your garden for an organic way to kill off any lurking slugs. Non-alcoholic beer works best. Slugs are attracted to the yeast and will crawl to it, fall down, drown in it, and die. This can get disgusting really fast, though, so you’ll need to empty the cups or bowls frequently.
What keeps slugs away from your garden?
If you’ve ever dealt with these slimy creatures, you know they can be a pain in your garden. These pests are attracted to moist conditions and love to feast on your plants’ leaves. Early action is crucial if you want to avoid having a slug problem this year or the one after that! Fortunately, you can avoid slugs from entering your garden naturally without using dangerous chemicals or pesticides. Here are a few things that can keep them away from your garden.
Natural predators
We should all be cautious when introducing new species to an ecosystem unless they are natural and would already be there since invasive species are unpleasant. Nevertheless, you can attract slug-hungry local predators to live in your garden. For instance, you may create a bird bath because birds enjoy slugs.
Does anyone else enjoy slugs? To name a few, there are chickens, ducks, salamanders, frogs, toads, snakes, newts, turtles, shrews, praying mantises, hedgehogs, ground beetles, nematodes, rove beetles, and fireflies.
Beer trap
This is brutal and will result in slug death, but if you are in a desperate situation, try it. Place about an inch of beer in an open container that has been buried so that the rim is parallel to the ground. The slugs will quickly perish when they dive into this small beer pool. Every morning, check the trap and empty it if necessary.
Sand
If the sensation of sand adhered to your feet bothers you, consider how a slug would feel if small sand shards were piercing its body. In the spring, scatter it around plants to aid the soil to retain moisture.
Companion plants
One of the coolest things ever is strategically grouping complementary plants; Mother Nature is smart, so why not use her expertise? You can entice slugs far from the plants you wish to keep for yourself by planting sacrifice companion plants near your prized plants.
Herbs like the following are excellent choices for companion planting that will deter these pests:
- Rosemary
- Mint
- Sage
- Parsely
- Lavender
- Creeping Thyme
Broken eggshells
Keep your broken eggshells, and then strew them across your garden. This will lessen the likelihood of slugs and snails returning to your garden for another helping. The soil will gain from the eggshells’ decomposition as well.
However, for larger areas, you’ll need a lot of eggshells that have been slightly crushed to make them little and sharp. To cut them up, crush them with your fingertips or briefly pulse them in a food processor.
Copper fences
Whatever the magic, it’s said that copper tubing, flashing, or tape provides a great barrier to keep slugs away. You can place it around individual plants or entire beds; make sure that all of the slugs were previously confined inside the gated area.
Grapefruit traps
Beer traps kill more beneficial insects than live grapefruit and other citrus fruit traps, which are live traps. Scoop out the inside of a grapefruit and enjoy one-half of it. After that, bury the empty grapefruit half in your garden upside down. The grapefruit half can be removed, taken outside of the garden, and used as bird food in the morning. Overnight, slugs will be drawn to the pleasant aroma and seek refuge in these citrus domes.
What do slugs hate most?
It turns out that there are a few things that slugs really dislike. One is salt. Slugs avoid salt because it is dehydrating. You can use salt to create a barrier around your home or garden that will keep slugs out. Another thing that slugs hate is hot weather. They prefer cool, damp environments and will die in hot weather. Finally, slugs hate light. They are nocturnal creatures that come out at night to feed.
Do coffee grounds keep slugs away?
Some gardeners swear by using coffee grounds to keep slugs away from their plants. But does this home remedy really work?
There is some evidence that coffee grounds can deter slugs. A study published in the journal Plos One found that coffee grounds were effective at repelling slug-like creatures called nematodes. The researchers found that the nematodes avoided the area when coffee grounds were applied to the soil.
If you’re looking for a natural way to deter slugs, coffee grounds may be worth a try. Just be sure to use them sparingly, as too much can harm your plants.
In conclusion, it is possible to keep slugs away from your garden. Using the natural methods above, you’ll be saying goodbye to those slimy pests in no time.
