This year was beyond horrible with attacking hordes of slugs merrily having their way with a few of my girls. They attacked nightly, spotlighting saw thousands of the little basturdos. I battled with Slughetta, egg shells with coffee grounds, coarse gravel, screen matts, sprays of ammonia with Murphy's Oil Soap and water,.... morning and night, each rain washing the attempts away and back they came.

I tried copper collars, sort of like those silly cones they put on a dog or a cat at the vets to keep it from licking a wound area. I faced them downward and it seemed to hinder their progress and I thought I had it licked but then they got to my eggplants and peppers too... absolute devestation af many tiny shoots with flowers on the soil daily....

So after stepping on one and muttering " I wish I could run a stake through your little heart " I had another highdea that actually worked!

VLAD THE IMPALER LIVES AGAIN!

I took some aluminum screen ( not plastic! ) and cut a circle, cut a slot and another inner circle. I pulled the "threads" on the outer circle back and created a row of spikes. I form the screen cut out in the form of a cup and put it around the stalk, you can use a short piece of wire to hold it together. Face the wire of the screen down and toward the dirt.

Slugs hit the spikes and reverse course, the screen wire will impale them and as the plant grows, you can either make another larger form or start with a larger one and it will expand easily as the plant grows if you adjust it during weekly maintenance walks.

At least it worked for me...

Peace!

Pete

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Are you by chance from the north east,, with so much rain the beginning of the summer I had a horrible time with slugs,, between the rain day after day and week after week, and then the slugs I lost a few plants,, didn't start out with many as it was,,,I used egg shells and put branches from the black berry bushes around the plants, thought the thorns would help... Helped a bit but it was having them close to me so I could check on them daily that saved what the rain didn't kill... Great idea you came up with,,,,, Happy Harvesting to you

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VERY good idea! Thanks!

thats pretty cool.
have you ever tried beer traps? a container half full of beer buried level with the ground attracts the slugs and drowns them. another method is to leave a newspaper on the ground overnight. in the morning the slugs find it a nice place to hide in. just roll it up and trash it...

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Yupper, did the beer traps, yeast traps... lots of pools all over, problem was the rain would wash them out. Then I bought some traps with rain covers but then I would forget to empty them and .... well a garden isn't supposed to smell like that...

Screens did the job, didn't smell and I saved my plants from a slug death..

Pete

I did the beer cans this year also,,, like you it did no good, rain rain rain,,, then the rest of the summer has been too dry,, Good ole Mother Nature

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heheh, i do love the screens ..