Slugs are likely to be one of the most commonly visited pests, yet an unwanted guest to your garden. These boneless creatures are a nightmare for any home-gardener. They can virtually eat away anything that you may have grown in your garden, overnight. From new seedlings, young shoots and leaves, to ripened fruits and anything in between — these soft pests can devour it all.

Slugs appear to be snails, but without the characteristic outer shell of snails. They are also somewhat related to clams and oysters. These legless creatures crawl, leaving behind a slime trail. Depending upon the type, slugs are found in different shades of grey, brown, yellow, black and green. Also dependent on their variety, the slug may range in size from a few centimetres to more than six inches in length.

Our focus today will be on the grey garden slugs which are considered to be the most destructive ones. Incidentally, the grey garden slugs are also the most common ones as well.

GREY ALARM BELLS

Slugs are not categorised as insects, but as molluscs — that is, those soft animals which are devoid of a backbone. Slugs are also hermaphrodites in nature. It means that a slug has both male and female reproductive organs. It also means that both male and female slugs can lay eggs. The head of the slug has two pairs of antennae-like feelers. The bigger pair of feelers has the eyes while the smaller pair of feelers helps the slug with smelling.

How to counter the slimy and sly foes of any and all plants — slugs…

Slugs flourish in moist and damp conditions. In those regions that are prone to rainfall, excess watering and limited dry spells, there are high chances of slugs’ inhabitation. If you are a vegetable grower and you believe that there are slugs in your garden, it is an alarming situation. This is because slugs like to eat and munch away green leafy vegetables such as lettuce or spinach and even vegetables from the brassicaceae family, including Chinese cabbage, broccoli, radishes and cauliflower.

They may attack these favoured vegetables in early seedling stage and even during the plant’s maturity stage. They may eat the new leaves, which is a nuisance and a demotivating factor for a home gardener.

They live under plant containers near the water drainage outlets and in other moist areas in your garden. While the mulch helps a home gardener in retaining water on the soil surface, it sometimes also provides the perfect conditions for slugs to flourish. Sometimes, decreased distance between the plant rows, resulting in crowding of the plants and bigger leaves providing complete shade on the soil, also make it a perfect environment for slugs.

Two of the slug-related popular myths among gardeners are that sprinkling of crushed eggshells or coffee grounds around the plant may help to kill slugs and also prevent them from reaching the plant. This, however, is not the case. The easiest of the solutions is very basic. If you do not want to use any chemical pesticides to get rid of these, then simply stop water retention and dry it off for the slugs!

ELIMINATING SLUGS

First of all, religiously follow a watering schedule in the early morning. Instead of watering in the late afternoon or during evening, water your plants as early in the morning as possible. This way, with sunlight exposure, the soil continues to dry going towards dusk, making it an unfavourable condition for the slugs to thrive.

Another trick is that you can try to increase the distance between the plants. If these are planted in the ground, you may need to transplant one of those or prune away overlapping branches and leaves. If they are potted plants, then you may simply shift a pot away from another.

Applying this separation and thinning technique of plants would let sunlight reach the soil and base of the plants, more air will pass through the plant’s branches, and leaves-induced shade on the ground will also be minimised.

If you are a vegetable-grower who may be growing slug-susceptible vegetables, the best you can do is shifting these plants away from the slug attack. However, if the vegetables are being grown in the ground, you may surround and plant those herbs which repel slugs around these vegetable plants. These may include two of the popular aromatic herbs — mint and basil — which tend to fend off the slugs from reaching and devouring their favourite vegetables.

Another technique to catch and kill slugs is to simply place pieces of wood and logs in your raised beds of susceptible vegetables. Overnight, these woody pieces absorb dew and moisture from humidity. In the morning, when you will pick these pieces, you are likely to find the slugs attached to their bottom sides. You can then separate these slugs and collect these to be used as feed for birds and poultry.

Please send your queries and emails to doctree101@hotmail.com. The writer is a physician and a host for the YouTube channel ‘DocTree Gardening’ promoting organic kitchen gardening

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 19th, 2023