How to kill slugs
Green way of getting rid of slugs
I hate nothing more than waking up to see my garden vegetables all chomped up by those nasty slimy things. I used to get up in the night to stalk them because none of the pest repellent products I tried seemed to work. After weeks of painful battles using various kinds of pest control, I decided to take things up in my own hands and now I can give you all the details on how to get rid of these pests.
Great easy ways to get rid of slugs
- Surround plant with water - Get a container larger than the pot of the plant. Put a block in the container and fill it with water until it is halfway up the block. Place the plant on top of the block in the middle of the container. When slugs climb up the surface they will fall into the water and die.
- Home made pesticide - Get 5 used cigarette butts and soak them in a cup of water overnight. This makes a powerful poison due to all the chemicals leached from the filter. Spray or sprinkle the leaves and this will surely keep them away.
- Slug Pellets - These are great all round solutions to keeping garden pests away. They are also good for getting rid of other critters like snails. Sprinkle them around the base of the stalk and on any path a slug might be able to travel. I find that heaping pellets around the stalk at base repels slugs really effectively.
- Soapy Water - If you have any dish water or water that you used to wash clothes, throw it over the leaves of your garden plants or garden flowers. The detergent in most soaps use an ingredient with a high salt content. Slugs hate salt!
- Slug Traps - Using slug traps are a great way of catching slugs before they can eat your produce. You place them in your slug hot spots and the smell attracts them. They fall into a compartment where they cant escape. A good diy method is to put a cup of milk in a trouble spot. For some strange reason, slugs prefer the lure of the milk rather than destroying your plants. They climb up the cup and fall into the milk. End of.
- DIY pesticide - Did you know that cigarettes have huge amounts of poison in them? Get six used cigarette butts and soak them in a cup of water overnight. You can also use two complete unused cigarettes instead. Sprinkle the solution on your plants and this should get rid of almost any pet. The chemicals leached from the fibres and tobacco provide a very large amount deadly poison, mostly cyanide. This is dangerous for all kinds of pests including snails, ants and caterpillars - it even can kill a human!
Slug usually come at night and it would be good to apply your chosen method at night. This is when they are most active and if you get them then, you'll also have a better chance of preventing reproduction. Hope you found my tips helpful, happy gardening!
