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natalija_gardener

Help! Slugs eat my strawberries!

natalija_gardener
14 years ago

I am a new gardener and got my first harvest of strawberries. But the biggest and ripest ones got eaten by slugs and some by ants.

Can you,expierienced gardeners, please recommend the fastest way to get rid of them both?

Comments (12)

  • scarleta
    14 years ago

    Slugs are hard to deal with.YOU may wish to visit the topic below, as it has lots of good ideas
    "Copper foil versus slugs"

  • hemnancy
    14 years ago

    This cool wet weather is excellent for slug hunting, they are out in the daylight, and also most evenings. I just take a knife and hack them to bits. They don't regenerate from pieces like earthworms, they are molluscs.

    Also when strawberries are fruiting I go look among the plants and frequently find them and cut them up. If I do this diligently I get most of them. I found a lot of the tiny little ones yesterday, they really made a lot of holes in my bean leaves for their size, voracious appetites.

  • bluesunflower
    14 years ago

    Oh those dirty rats! I hate the little blighters. One slug will lay 1,000 eggs. That's a lot of baby slugs. Use slug bait, Sluggo pellets work very well. You probably don't want to put that into your strawberries so put it on a paper plate, plastic lid or something. The slugs will find it. Next do go slug hunting, morning before the sun hits your beds or dusk when it cools off. Put some salt in a baggie and sprinkle just a bit onto the slugs you find. This will kill them instantly. No slug babies. Next you can look for slug eggs. They will be under rocks, brick, bark etc. Anywhere they can be cool moist and shady during the day. They will look like little bits of tapioca pudding. Tiny translucent beads all grouped together. Toss on the salt. No slug babies.

    This is a hassle, you have to be persistent and consistent. It is however worth it. If you can get the slug population down and under control you can bait farther away from your beds and not have nearly the problem in the future.

    Good luck fighting the good fight.

  • buyorsell888
    14 years ago

    Sluggo is safe for pets and wildlife. :) cutting them up is satisfies my emotions towards them though....

  • natalija_gardener
    Original Author
    14 years ago

    Thanks to everyone for help!
    I will try to do as you said. By the way where to buy Sluggo cheap?
    On-line it cost 17.00,but with shipping is 35$:-(
    BTW I tried to give them a beer party, and it helped - next morning I found many of them dead. I did as one book said - buy a foreign beer, they seem like it more:-))

  • novita
    14 years ago

    I have given up trying to get rid of the slugs. Here's what I did with some strawberries. I planted them in 2 gallon containers, put the containers on an old picnic table in the sun - no slugs!. They are starting to get ripe so I put netting over them to protect from birds. The only drawback is they are probably going to outgrow the pots.

  • Tina Cuevas
    7 years ago

    I had the same problem...I researched online and found something about putting beer...yes beer...in a small container and the slugs will be attracted to the beer ..fall in and drown. Most slugs must be of the male species...lol.

    I did just this and the next day I had 6 slugs in the cup that had drowned . I have not had any issues since. I leave the cup out every night.

    To place the cup or glass bowl ...just bury it until the top is level to the ground. Then add beer ..preferably a cheap one...and check it daily. I was shocked but it worked for me...hope this helps.

  • Olychick
    7 years ago

    I put beer in empty 1/2 pint waxed containers, like cream or milk comes in and then set them on their sides so the rain doesn't dilute the beer, but the slugs can crawl into the opening. They drown, or whatever happens to them and then you can just toss the whole container away without having to deal with the corpses.

    Sluggo works well for me but the squirrels follow me around (apparently) and eat it whenever I put it down - even if I do it at night, it is gone in the a.m. Maybe raccoons eat it to. Doesn't appear to hurt them, from the # of squirrels in my yard.

  • Misty Morgan
    6 years ago

    Can I put salt around my strawberry plant to keep slugs away?

  • stolenidentity
    6 years ago

    Coffee grounds and egg shells work to keep them off plants, they don't like to slither over crusty stuffs. Salt will kill slug but it's not really good for your soil composition.

  • natalija_gardener
    Original Author
    6 years ago

    hi! This is my post - the problem I had years ago got resolved//// When I got chickens,,, I have some grain laying around, it attracts wild birds... no problems with slugs anymore.... Permaculture at work )))