How to get rid of slugs in the house. Effective methods of dealing with slugs in the garden

I have been trying to get rid of slugs in my yard for years. I cannot boast that the fight against these molluscs was particularly successful. but gained solid experience. In any case, I can say which methods of killing slugs are effective and which are completely useless.

To successfully deal with these pests, you need to know what they love and what is detrimental to them.

Slugs, despite their external amorphousness, are able to deal with rather rough food: they have jaws with a sharp edge and a thick grater tongue. Slugs are polyphagous pests, that is, they can feed on many plants. But when there is a choice, everyone else prefers lettuce, cabbage (primarily Beijing), strawberries.

Thanks to the subtle organs of taste and smell, they find their favorite delicacies unmistakably. Onion, garlic, sorrel, parsley and others spicy plants slugs are of little interest.

Let's start the fight against slugs

Completely getting rid of slugs on the site is a hopeless business. It is possible to cover the entire garden with granules of Thunderstorm, Slug-eater, thereby violating the ecological cleanliness of the site, and on next year to see the slippery robbers again on a cabbage or strawberry patch.

Focusing on smells, slugs are able to overcome considerable distances and crawl from neighboring areas, from a nearby forest. The number of slugs can be reduced to a safe level if you know them vulnerabilities, behaviors...

One only has to look at these slippery creatures to realize that they are made up almost entirely of water. And they need wet conditions to survive. Once in the sun, they try to hide as quickly as possible, and if they fail, soon there is not even a wet place left of them.

For the same reason, heat is detrimental to slugs: at temperatures above 25 degrees, they die. That is why pests are active only at night when the air is humid and cool. During the day they can be seen only in rainy weather. Dense thickets of plants are comfortable for them, in which it is cool during the day.

Contraindicated in slugs and frost. Adults die already at a temperature of -3 -4 degrees. Eggs can withstand temperatures as low as -11 degrees. As a rule, adult slugs do not survive the winter, and in the spring the population begins to revive from the eggs laid in the fall.

Probably, summer residents paid attention to the fact that after snowless frosty winters, and if the summer is dry, hot, there are few pests. And vice versa, mild winters, summer rains help slugs to breed, which happened last season.

In such years, the second generation of slugs has time to hatch. It is for this reason that this autumn it was possible to see not only "fed" mollusks, but also a trifle.

Let's conclude: a large number of slugs at the end of this season does not mean that next year there will be even more pests: winter can drastically reduce their number. Especially if we help her with this.

Late in the autumn, before the snow fell, we will walk with a rake or flat cutter around the site, paying increased attention to those areas where there were especially many slugs. Having stirred up upper layer soil, we will turn out the laid heaps of light translucent eggs with a diameter of about a millimeter. Of course, not all, but at least some of them. Once on the surface, the eggs are likely to die.

In the spring we will continue the fight.

Try not to create shady wet corners for slugs.
It is better to water in the morning so that the soil dries out by the evening.
Do not plant or sow too thickly.
The soil in the beds where cabbage and lettuce, which are loved by mollusks, grow, should not be mulched with grass, under which the slugs will find shelter, but with compost, humus, sprinkling them with chopped eggshell, mustard powder, wood ash.
Vegetable beds can be framed with plants containing essential oils: sage, mint, oregano, basil, pelargonium.
You can do the opposite and plant lettuce seedlings next to cabbage: its tender leaves are more attractive for slugs than cabbage ones. By distracting pests, the salad will save the cabbage. Without waiting for the lettuce to throw out the flower arrows (the slugs lose their love for such a salad), we pull it out and destroy the pests hiding in the sockets.

We will try to contain a plot of plant debris, under the heaps of which mollusks like to hide. And believe me, this is not an on-duty recommendation; it is simply useless to fight slugs in cluttered areas.

A simple and effective trap for slugs

Instead of natural shelters, we will build traps for slugs. Boards, pieces of slate, damp rags, pieces of thick film folded in several layers, let's lay them out in damp shady places and check them every few days.

Here is a cluster of mollusks gathered under a small piece of flat slate.

Crowds of pests can be sprayed from a manual sprayer with a solution of salt or vinegar, they quickly die from such a shower (but it is much easier and faster to suppress them with your feet)

Gastropods like to hide under water-filled plastic buckets, such as paint buckets.

In order for the slugs to more readily gather in shelters, the site is not watered for several days, then traps are placed around the perimeter, and the soil under them is abundantly moistened.

It is these traps that are the most effective folk remedy for the destruction of slugs in the garden. You will not completely get rid of them, but you can reduce the number and very noticeably. Just check the traps not 2 - 3 times during the summer, but regularly, throughout the season, otherwise these traps will turn into excellent shelters for pests.

The Internet describes many ways to deal with slugs, but in practice they are of little use. Well, you won’t fill the garden with salt, lime or ground pepper several times over the summer. The same can be said about spraying solutions. ammonia, vinegar and so on. Such treatments will have to be carried out almost every day.

I tried to arrange and cans of beer in the garden. For two nights, only a few pests got there. From this I concluded that the love of slugs for beer is greatly exaggerated or even contrived.

Ash helps well, which can be sprinkled on the ground around the plants and the plants themselves. That's just where to get so much of it, after all, it was forbidden to burn fires, and baths are rarely heated in summer.

How to rid a strawberry plantation of slugs

The bodies of gastropods are very delicate and they try not to crawl where they can get hurt on some kind of prickly and sharp objects. Knowing this, some summer residents are trying to protect their beds with the help of needles.

I also tried this option. With needles, I fell asleep between the rows of strawberries and the pests really decreased. Unfortunately, this method has side effect. The needles strongly acidify the soil and the next year our strawberries all turned yellow.

The husk saves strawberries well from gastropod pests

I had to rake out all the needles and throw them away. Instead of needles, strawberries were again covered with seed husks. The result was about the same. Slugs have become much less. If earlier they devoured most of the crop, now (and this is already 4 years old) most of the berries go to us.

Natural enemies of gastropods

And do not forget that even slugs have enemies in nature: rooks, starlings, jackdaws, hedgehogs, lizards, shrews, frogs, toads. Especially hunt for toad slugs. And if you move a few amphibians to the site, they will save it from slippery pests. In autumn, chickens and ducks can be released onto the site so that they clean the beds from slugs.

Chemical agents for fighting molluscs

Having tried many drugs (not all of course), I settled on the Slug Eater. According to my observations, this drug destroys slugs best of all. Below is a photo document. The spectacle is certainly disgusting, but it clearly shows the effectiveness of this poison.

This is how the Slug Eater deals with pests.

If you still decide to get rid of pests with the help of chemistry, do not scatter the Thunderstorm, Slug-eater granules over the surface of the aisles, but place them in a cardboard rolled up into a tube. The active substance of pesticides is toxic, and it is safer if the pellets do not come into contact with the soil.

Do not work between rows of beds where green crops grow. In other areas, processing is stopped 20 days before harvest.

For myself, I came to the following conclusions:

The most effective "wet" traps.
To prevent pests from entering the beds, it is necessary to cover them with seed husks.
If poisoned, then Slug-eater.

I repeat once again: these measures will not get rid of slugs forever. However, like everyone else.

Watch a video on how to deal with slugs, there is a very interesting tips:

I would be glad if readers share their ways of dealing with these pests or correct me if I'm wrong about something.

You may be interested in:

5610 03/13/2019 5 min.

Today on suburban area many pests can be found. But among this diversity, slugs are considered more nasty and vile. This is a gastropod mollusk that does a lot of harm to cultivated crops. Slugs love to eat fruits and vegetables, as well as almost everything that summer residents usually grow. You can fight these pests with the help of folk and chemical means.

Purchased drugs to combat slugs in the garden

When fighting slugs in the country, you can use proven chemicals. Today they are present in enough. Metal hydride is considered the most optimal. It is sold in the form of granules, which you just need to scatter over the beds. Slugs, in turn, begin to eat these granules, as a result of which they get intestinal poisoning and die. You can also sprinkle the metal hydride in powder form. Send it to places where slugs accumulate. Then the powder will penetrate the skin and it will lead to poisoning.

You can also fight slugs with freshly slaked lime or iron sulphate. You can prepare a mixture of bleach and stove ash, taken in a ratio of 1: 4. Still slugs will not tolerate tobacco dust. It is enough just to scatter it around the garden. When the mollusks throw off the poisoned mucus, then chemical treatment to be repeated.

On the video - how to get rid of slugs on the site forever:

Boiling water

For those who are looking for an effective remedy for slugs, you can use the most budgetary one - this is boiling water. The fact is that mollusks do not like high temperatures. It is simply deadly for them. At the same time, many garden plants tolerate boiling water well. All that is required of you is to boil water, bringing it to 60 degrees, and then irrigate the leaves of plants in the garden with it.

garden plants

Very often summer residents plant garlic in the garden to control pests. It is believed that slugs do not like its pungent aroma. You can also treat the bed with a decoction of garlic. To do this, take the product in an amount of 200 g, grind on a grater and add 60 liters of water. Received infusion to irrigate the garden. In addition to garlic, horseradish can be planted on the plot. More leaves and roots can be decomposed over the site. This will be an insurmountable obstacle for the molluscs.

Next effective means remains a spray obtained from the tincture of wormwood. First you need to prepare the plant itself.

To do this, finely chop the leaves and stems of wormwood and pour water. 200 ml of raw materials account for 1 liter of water. Infuse the mixture throughout the day, and then use to treat plants.

Slugs also don't like parsley. It is worth knowing more about how it happens. It will be an excellent protection for strawberries if planted along the edges of the beds and in the center. Nettle can also be used to control pests. It is enough to spread its stems and leaves around the garden. You can also use for this herbs such as mint, tansy, lemon balm. You can also cover the soil in the garden with spruce or pine needles.

Spices

Slugs cannot stand strong odors. They do not harm garlic, parsley, cilantro. Thus, these plants can be safely planted on the site. This will not only allow you to get fresh herbs for making salads, but will also be an excellent prevention against slugs.

But store-bought spices can also be used. It is worth scattering allspice, coffee, mustard, cinnamon and other vices that have a sharp aroma around the garden. (how mustard is sown in the spring to fertilize the soil is described in this). This will limit the movement of pests around the site, and the plants themselves will not receive any harm. It is the use of sharp spices that is one of the fastest and most effective ways elimination of shellfish.

Traps

You can fight slugs in the country with the help of traps. You can make them yourself or buy ready-made mechanisms. These are ordinary containers that have 2 entrances. Moreover, they are made in such a way that after the pest has penetrated inside, he will no longer be able to go back and exit. You can attract shellfish with products such as beer, jam, honey. You need to place traps throughout the site.

Ordinary rags remain a homemade version of the trap. You just need to wet them and lay them out in different corners of the garden. Then the mollusks will begin to gather near the traps, and you just have to remove the pests that are caught from time to time and moisten the matter.

On the video - a trap for slugs:

natural enemies

If you do not want to use chemicals to control pests, then you can make everything much easier and without harm to the plants. In nature, slugs have a lot of enemies. For example, hedgehogs remain their competitors. Probably everyone in the garden has these prickly helpers. In addition, you can attract them with milk or meat.

But the gray and green toads remain the most serious enemies of slugs. But some gardeners, out of ignorance, are considered that these animals are pests, since horses gnaw strawberries, tomatoes or cucumbers. But this opinion is wrong. The fact is that toads feed exclusively on what moves. Here's how to kill weeds in the garden by chemical means, will help to understand this

If suddenly you have witnessed how a frog is sitting near a strawberry, then you should not drive it away. Keep in mind that at this moment she is on the lookout for a real pest that eats your vegetables and fruits.

Collection by hand

If you are looking for the fastest and a budget option slug control, it is worth choosing the manual collection option. To do this, you will have to make a tour of the garden early in the morning. The favorite habitat of pests are metal or wooden surfaces. Also look in dark and damp places.

For example, it can be sprinklers, buckets, hoses. Often they are concentrated in the shade of plantings, at the roots of cabbage and in a strawberry rosette.(how to plant broccoli cabbage for seedlings, information will help to understand). Such an inspection should be carried out regularly, collecting slugs in a container. Then they should be etched with any chemical preparation. This method, of course, takes a lot of time, but then you can protect your plants from both pests and the chemical effects of drugs.

Slugs in the country are a common occurrence. These pests, in addition to having a vile appearance, cause great harm cultures. Most often they eat tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries. Numerous methods have been devised to combat them. Each of them is effective in its own way, so the only way to understand which one suits you is through trial and experimentation.

What could be better and healthier than vegetables and fruits from the garden, which are rich in various vitamins. Every summer resident is faced with a variety of pests every year. vegetable crops. Especially in rainy summers, many gardeners suffer from invasions of slugs and snails. These insects are capable of destroying not only the green mass cultivated plants and their fruits. If small abrasions are found on the crops in any part, as if on a grater, and the earth glistens around the beds, then the slugs are in the garden. About how to get rid folk methods from these pests, will be discussed later.

Description

Benefits of insects

Before you get rid of slugs in the garden, you should also familiarize yourself with positive moments their lives on the site. In addition to cultivated plants, slugs can eat various lichens, mushrooms, fallen leaves and other unnecessary vegetation, acting as a kind of orderly in a garden plot.

Many fishermen know how to get rid of slugs. After all, they simply collect these invertebrates for bait, and sometimes they specially breed them for this purpose. They are very fond of slugs and domestic chickens, so many owners of farms with these birds also collect and specially breed slugs for food for chickens.

Insect harm

Before you get rid of slugs in your summer cottage, you need to correctly determine their favorite gathering places. Since insects are predominantly nocturnal, it is not easy to spot them. You can determine where the pests were by the silvery trace left on the ground and leaves from their mucus, as well as by the crops eaten.

Slug food can easily be:

tomatoes;
fruits of strawberries and wild strawberries;
cucumbers;
cabbage;
Sweet pepper;
any young shoots;
harvest of fruit trees.

Need to fight

In addition to aesthetic damage to the crop, slugs can also be a danger to the health of the person himself and his pets. The fact is that these pests are capable of spreading spores of fungal diseases and worm larvae. That is why, when traces of invertebrate vital activity are found on the site, it is necessary to ask as soon as possible how to get rid of slugs in the garden.

Prevention measures

In order not to be interested in information in the future on how to get rid of slugs in the beds, it is better to secure your garden in advance and prevent their appearance, because it is much easier to do this than to remove pests that have already taken root from the site.

The main preventive way to get rid of slugs is to reduce, and if possible, completely remove too wet and shaded areas in the garden.

They are localized at night exactly:

in heaps of weedy grass;
in places of accumulation of organic residues;
under planks or other coverings.

All places where sunlight does not penetrate on the surface of the earth should be carefully checked and, if possible, removed.

How to get rid of slugs in the country yet? In autumn, it is necessary to carry out deep digging of the soil so that their eggs freeze out in winter, because pests lay them in the ground. By the way, such a preventive measure will help get rid of many other pests.

It will also be useful to attract natural orderlies to the site in the form of frogs, hedgehogs and birds. Slugs are food for them in their natural environment, so by luring them to the garden, you don’t have to worry that invertebrates will appear in large numbers. Birdhouses are usually made for birds, a small pond can be made for frogs, and wintering should be prepared for hedgehogs. The animal will definitely appreciate such a house, only you will first need to lure it with milk or other treats.

Environmental methods

If a slug appears on a pepper, nature itself will tell you how to get rid of it. It is best in such a situation to manually collect pests every morning from the beds and other places of their deployment.

Most often they are collected:

near iron watering cans;
in places where water is collected;
under irrigation hoses;
under the porch;
in the depths of the beds;
at the roots of plants;
where condensation accumulates.

This method is very effective, but also very laborious, since not everyone can devote a lot of time to collecting pests every early morning, and not everyone has a desire. That is why there is another ecological way to get rid of slugs. To do this, you just need to place next to the beds with sowing or planting seedlings of crops herbs, whose aroma repels invertebrates. Mint, garlic, rosemary and other herbs can be used for this purpose. It is best to place them around the entire perimeter of the beds.

Protection of young sprouts

To protect young seedlings of cultivated plants from being eaten by pests, it is necessary from time to time to spray its leaves with special solutions. To do this, in a ratio of 1:6 with water, you can dilute table vinegar or ammonia. It is very important to process all the surfaces of the seedlings without exception, even the leaves on the reverse side.

There are other ways to get rid of slugs in seedlings. For this, spray mixtures are also prepared, only based on instant coffee or mustard powder. The latter should be taken no more than 6 tablespoons per 10 liters of water. After each rain or watering, the procedure must be repeated.

How to get rid of slugs in a greenhouse? Spraying with caustic compounds in the created microclimate can harm crops, therefore, in greenhouse conditions, it is better to use dry soil sprinkles around plantings. To do this, take the same dry mustard powder, slaked lime or wood ash. Pests avoid such areas because these dry substances damage their bodies. For prevention, it is enough to sprinkle 30 grams for each square meter beds.

Slug traps

In the case when pests have already chosen a garden for themselves, it is necessary to act more drastically. To do this, it is necessary to place special traps for slugs around the site, which can be purchased ready-made or easily made on your own, because everyone knows the preferences of mollusks.

The easiest way is to lay out large wet plant leaves, pieces of roofing material, linoleum or boards around the perimeter of the plantings in the evening, and in the morning just collect slugs from under them. To increase efficiency, it is recommended not to water the garden before this for several days. It is important to do this with gloves or special accessories, as their mucus is very difficult to wash off and may contain harmful microorganisms.

deadly and most effective trap for invertebrates is cornmeal or grits. With its smell, it attracts slugs to feast on, after which they all surely die. For cooking, flour or cereal is poured into a jar and placed on its side near the garden. At night, invertebrates gather in it, overeat and die, the next morning it remains only to collect them and throw them away. This will help to get rid of pests of planting any crops.

How to get rid of slugs on cucumbers? In addition to the method described above, beer traps can be placed around the perimeter of the beds. The smell of fermentation also attracts molluscs, so kvass or beer, preferably dark, is poured into plastic bottles cut to 1 cm or other shallow containers and placed around the garden. The slugs crawl into the jars, but they can no longer get out, so in the morning it remains only to collect them and throw them away.

You can use kefir in the same way. For these purposes, by the way, you do not need to pour it into containers, it is enough to leave an open empty bottle of fermented milk drink in the garden for the night. Fruit peels, even exotic ones, also have a peculiar attractive aroma for shellfish.

Leftovers from:

watermelons;
melons;
pumpkins;
grapefruits;
oranges and other citrus fruits.

The peels for this should be from half of the entire fruit, in the form of a hemisphere with a hole made in the center. Such a peel is placed on the ground with the outer side up and left overnight. Slugs climb into the hole and cannot climb back along the slippery inner walls, so in the morning they are simply collected and neutralized.

Another in an efficient way is the mulching of beds with cultural plantings. This method is especially relevant during the fruiting period of berries, such as strawberries and strawberries, since the use of chemicals at this time is strictly prohibited. Sprinkle the aisles of crops with any sharp and small materials that can damage the body of the mollusk. Salt is ideal for this, as it additionally destroys the mucus of the invertebrate. In addition to it, you can use crushed eggshells, broken shells, small pebbles and even pine needles, the aroma of which will further repel pests.

Chemicals

If none of the listed loyal methods worked, and the pests continue to attack the plantings, then three weeks before harvesting, it is allowed to apply a chemical mixture. They are made in the form of granules for scattering along the aisles.

Popular are:

"Meta".
"Thunderstorm".
Ferramol.
"Anti-slug".

Almost always, the dosage per 1 square meter is 3 grams of the substance, but when using this method we should not forget about the dangers. The fact is that the preparations contain components that repel birds, and do not harm them, but at the same time they can be dangerous for other pets, especially cats. Also, the active substance can accumulate in the fruits of plants, which is not very good for the person himself. Always after using such cardinal methods, the resulting crop should be thoroughly washed under hot water.

Favorite treat

To do this, young seedlings should be placed at a great distance, at least half a meter, so as not to thicken and shade the garden when heads of cabbage begin to grow. Additional security for each sprout can be provided with a kind of fence. For its manufacture, it is necessary to cut from plastic bottle ring and perforate it from the top edge with tweezers or small scissors. Sharp jagged edges will damage the mollusc's body if it wants to get to the seedlings.

As soon as the head of cabbage begins to grow, and lower leaves will fall to the ground, they should be cut off immediately. Planting aisles can be sprinkled with various small mulches or fragrant wormwood or stinging nettles can be laid out daily around heads of cabbage. Herbs must always be fresh to be effective.

Interestingly, for prevention, cabbage can be watered in the evening with hot water (no more than 50 degrees) over closed leaves. Such a procedure does not threaten the plant at all, but it will burn the pests well.

For slug treatment horticultural crops often used and infusion of bitter pepper. To prepare it, the hot spice powder is insisted for two days in a liter of water, after which it is boiled. Past heat treatment the solution is insisted for another day, only after that it is used for its intended purpose. It is important to take ready mix only 100 grams per bucket of water, otherwise you can burn the plants. The finished product is stored in a cool dark place. For long-term preservation on the leaves, you can add a soap solution to the mixture.

Finally

In fact, getting rid of slugs is quite easy, you just need to block their access to favorable habitats. Of course the most effective means control will be the implementation of preventive measures to prevent their occurrence, especially since there are currently a huge number of specialized stores that sell drugs to eliminate pests.

No one is happy about the appearance of slugs in the house. The mere sight of this mollusc is disgusting to some people, not to mention the nasty, sticky trail it leaves behind. He can settle in a garden on plants, a cellar, a basement, or even an apartment. What to do when slugs appear in the house, how to get rid of them using simple methods, the following article will tell you.

Who are slugs?

Let's look at the enemy more closely so that we know how to deal with him. The slug belongs to the class of animals - gastropods. Outwardly, it is similar to a snail, only it does not have a “house” on its back, it has several processes on its head, in the form of horns. The ideal place for slugs are damp, dark places with a temperature of about + 14-18 ° C.

During the day they hide more, and at night they go hunting. They have a good appetite, they like all vegetables and fruits, as well as young vegetation. Sometimes curiosity or favorable conditions make slugs sneak into apartments and houses.

How to deal with slugs?

If you find a shiny sticky mark on the floor or walls, you know that slugs have appeared in your home. The best place for their settlement, where it is damp, then you need to look for them in the bathroom or kitchen.

Usually use special means against mollusks based on metaldehyde or blue vitriol. But they can only be applied to open ground by placing the granules of the substance on the beds between the plants. For a cellar where stocks of vegetables and fruits are stored, and even more so for living quarters, the use of such methods of dealing with slugs is strictly prohibited.

In the house, you can use products that do not pose a danger to human health. There are several foods that slugs cannot tolerate:

mustard powder
ground coffee
vinegar
ammonia

Scatter them in those places where it is damp, where you have noticed their traces of being.

Interesting fact: Slugs love the smell of beer. To make a special trap, soak rags or a towel with beer and place them on a plastic oilcloth in the favorite places of slugs. Leave for the night, in the morning it remains only to collect and throw away "dear guests".

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Slugs in the cellar

In the summer, you can carry out gassing of the basement.

Remove all preservation first.
Put a sulfur bomb on a sheet of iron, set it on fire. In this case, one should strictly adhere to the instructions for using the checker and observe safety measures to prevent sulfur poisoning.
Leave the room closed for three days after gassing.
Before bringing in a new batch of products, the room should be well ventilated.
Carefully check the brought vegetables for the presence of slugs.

For prevention the appearance of mollusks in the cellar, you can use lime pollination, prevent high humidity in the room, and air more often.

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Everyone knows how much time, money and effort is spent on protecting the future crop from harmful insects. In cool and rainy summers, this problem becomes even more acute, as the army of pests is replenished with slugs. Snails, which have lost their shells over the years of evolution, are very afraid sunlight and crawl out of their shelters to garden beds, mostly only at night. After their invasion, there are perforated leaves, damaged stems and fruits with traces of shiny mucus. To save the harvest, you need to know how to properly deal with slugs in the country and garden.

How do slugs live?

gastropod mollusk, appearance very similar to a snail, was called a slug. Its translucent body has no limbs and moves by contraction of the muscles of the sole. On the head are tentacles that act as sensory organs. Each cell secretes a small amount of secretion, which prevents the complete drying of the slug's body, promotes its movement and scares off some predators.

Ground slugs are very afraid of sunlight and prefer dark and damp places. Best of all, these pests reproduce at temperatures from +15°C to +19°C. During rainy, hot summers or warm, humid autumns, reproduction is most intense.

In dry weather, slugs in the garden become inactive, their activity decreases. Mollusks tend to climb into dark place to keep your body hydrated longer. Some of them build earthen cocoons, holding the soil particles together with their own mucus, and wait there until favorable conditions occur.

Harm from slugs

You can meet a slug in any region with a mild climate and an average or high humidity. This gastropod pest successfully sneaks into the most hard-to-reach places and conducts its pernicious activities there. In the garden and in the garden bed, in the cellar and basement, you can stumble upon whole hordes of slimes.

Most of all, the pest loves to feast on the fresh greens of young plants, but will not refuse fleshy bell pepper or sweet strawberries and raspberries. As soon as the first representative of the voracious family is seen in the garden, a decisive struggle must begin. Otherwise, in a maximum of a month, the mollusks will flood the entire area, and it will be very difficult to get rid of them.

The main harm from slugs is the damage to cultivated plants that serve as food for the pest.

The following stands may be affected by shellfish:

strawberries, raspberries and other berry crops;
vegetables - cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes in the greenhouse and open ground;
fruit trees;
seedlings and salad greens.

In addition, gastropods infect other plants with fungal diseases. controversy powdery mildew and gray rot, along with mucus, settle on the leaves and fruits of healthy crops. As a result, the plant becomes sick and dies.

What are slugs afraid of in the garden?

When starting to fight slugs, you need to know what they are afraid of and what weather can't stand shellfish..

Slugs are very afraid of hot dry weather and absolutely cannot stand exposure to sunlight. This is understandable, because the body of these animals is 98% water. Therefore, when starting to fight slugs, first of all, it is necessary to clear the beds of excess grass so that they are ventilated and moisture does not stagnate between the plants. It is advisable to remove weed thickets not only on personal plot but also around it.

It has been observed that mollusks never approach onions, garlic, sage, oregano, mustard, cumin and geraniums - slugs have a highly developed sense of smell. By planting one of the above crops next to the vegetable garden, you can protect the plantings from the invasion of pests.

Mollusks can't jump or fly, don't move very fast, and can't overcome even the smallest obstacles. Therefore, one of the methods of dealing with gastropods is mulching the soil with ash or sharp pebbles, pine or coniferous needles.

natural enemies

There are many ways to deal with slugs, from the harmless repelling of pests to their complete destruction with the help of chemicals. Great help to gardeners in the extermination of mollusks is provided by birds, frogs, hedgehogs and other living creatures that live in their summer cottage. Therefore, it is necessary to create all conditions for the life of these useful animals and in every possible way to lure them to the territory of your dacha.

Means of biocontrol

The tool can be used from early spring to late autumn - the main thing is that the soil has time to warm up to + 5 ° C and is not too dry. The drug is absolutely safe for humans and surrounding nature, long lasting, effective and easy to use.

Nematodes are living organisms that are dormant until a certain point. Even in a cold place, they are able to live no more than one month.

Biological slug control is commercially available as a powder or spray. The powder is diluted with water according to the instructions and watered over the places where the mollusks accumulate. Nematodes multiply rapidly and destroy slugs. With the help of the drug within a week it will be possible to get rid of most of the pests. The disadvantage of the biological product is a short shelf life.

Traps

One of the most humane methods slug control after manual collection is the installation of traps bought in garden stores or made by oneself.

The trap is arranged as follows: two holes are made in the upper part of the plastic cup, into which tubes are inserted. A bait is placed inside the container, in which you can take pieces of vegetables. Traps are evenly distributed over the garden, trying to place in the most shady place. The slug, moving along the tube for food, falls to the bottom of the glass.

It is quite possible to make devices for collecting slugs with your own hands. It is enough to fold old boards or tiles turned upside down in a dark, damp place. flower pots and spread the bait. In the morning, all that remains is to collect gastropods and take them away outside the territory of the site.

It has long been observed that slugs love beer. You can set traps with this well-known product. Not far from the garden, small containers are buried so that their edges are at ground level, and beer is poured into them. The height of the jar should be such that the slug, having eaten the intoxicating bait and fallen into the container, could not get out.

barriers

Barriers installed on the path of pests and protecting the beds or single plants, allow you to quickly and easily get rid of slugs. A strip 15 cm wide is covered with sharp gravel or chipped bricks, coniferous or pine needles, eggshell or other bulk materials capable of blocking the way for mollusks.

A proven folk remedy is the sprinkling of paths and earth near plants with lime. Such treatment of the site from slugs is best done in evening time, before the pests crawl out into the beds in search of food.

As barriers, you can use plastic gutters installed along the vegetable beds.

Garden shops sell special copper-plated fencing. The fact is that when crossing a tape made of copper, the slug receives a small electric shock. This scares off pests, and they move to another place.

Folk ways to deal with mollusks

Experienced gardeners know how to deal with gastropods by making various decoctions or using common food products.

A decoction of wormwood or fern will scare away pests. To prepare the mixture, you need to put the freshly harvested plants in a bucket, pour cold water and stir occasionally. After the mixture has fermented well, water it with places where pests accumulate.
Slugs are afraid of the smell of coffee, mustard powder, vinegar, ammonia. All of these substances can be used to control pests. It is better to cultivate the soil in dry weather, as after watering or rain, the products will lose their deterrent properties.
Clams are incredibly attracted to the smell of citrus fruits. If you put a half of a large grapefruit in the evening on the garden bed with the skin up, then in the morning it remains only to throw the slugs out of the eaten glass.

Chemicals

In large garden areas where it is not possible to cope with snails with repellents and traps, chemicals are used. This method of struggle is perhaps the most effective of all previously listed. However, it should be remembered that all insecticides are toxic and any treatment of the garden with chemicals harms animals and plants.

The Swiss drug "Meta", used all over the world for more than 100 years and recognized as the most effective among analogues, is produced in our country under the name "Thunderstorm". The destructive effect of the insecticide is provided by metaldehyde in combination with additives that attract slugs and snails. Once in digestive tract shellfish, the chemical completely dehydrates the body.

The granules are scattered between the beds, creating a protective barrier. You can use the drug in any weather, as the granules are not afraid of moisture. In addition, additives that attract pests repel birds, which makes the use of the product safe for feathered garden dwellers.

Another domestic remedy for slugs, based on the action of metaldehyde, is Slug Eater. The drug is easy to use, has a protective effect for up to three weeks, avoids a decrease in yield and loss of marketable products.

Prevention

Work on the prevention of slugs attacks begins with the onset of spring. Experienced gardeners recommend taking the following measures to prevent the appearance of pests:

to limit a plot with plantations to a strip wood ash or mustard;
carefully weed and clean extra plants to ensure that sunlight enters the garden;
in autumn, carry out deep digging of the soil in order to destroy the dwellings of mollusks and destroy eggs;
feed birds and hedgehogs;
carry out uniform watering, avoiding waterlogging of the soil.

As seen, preventive measures do not require a lot of time and money. This is much more correct than poisoning the soil and garden plants with chemicals.

It is difficult to choose the most effective of all methods of dealing with snails and slugs in the country, so it is advisable to apply several methods at once. You can and should fight against molluscs. If it is not possible to completely rid the garden of pests, then a decrease in their population will undoubtedly bring tangible benefits to plantings, and even in a rainy summer it will allow you to get a full harvest.