May is a great month for gardeners, but it can also be a stressful one. After weeks or even months of raising seedlings indoors and carefully planting them outside, the first signs of growth finally appear. But as shoots break through the soil, so too do the pests, with slugs posing one of the biggest threats to all that hard work.
Luckily, experts are recommending two unusual methods to keep slugs away – sprinkling cinnamon and pouring beer in your garden. Slugs are notorious for destroying crops and flowers overnight, especially in vegetable beds and young borders. While many reach for chemical pellets, experts say there are safer, eco-friendly ways to deal with the problem.
Gardener Arthur Parkinson told Homes & Gardens: “Slugs and snails are a bit of a pest, but I would never ever use slug pellets.
“There’s very good research showing that the pellets that include metaldehyde are not good for garden birds either.”
Instead, one of the simplest methods is to sprinkle cinnamon powder around the base of your plants.
According to House Digest, the spice acts as a natural repellent and sticks to the moist bodies of slugs, causing them to turn back. It also works as a deterrent for ants and gnats.
For even more impact, gardeners can mix 20 drops of cinnamon oil with two cups of water in a spray bottle.
But caution is advised as cinnamon oil can irritate the skin and harm plants if overused, so it should be applied lightly and reapplied after rain.
Another popular trick is the beer trap. Gardening Know How explains that slugs are attracted to the yeast in beer, and will crawl into containers filled with it, falling in and drowning.
The experts recommend placing traps about every square yard in affected areas, using recycled containers or cut-down bottles filled with two to three inches of beer.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) also supports this method.
Andrew Salisbury, a Senior Entomologist at RHS Garden Wisley, said: “Bait jam jars or proprietary traps, placed in the soil, with beer or black treacle diluted with water to trap and drown slugs and snails.”
Lids aren’t essential, but can help reduce rain dilution. The traps should be checked daily, topped up with beer, and emptied of slugs, which can then be composted or left for birds and other predators.
Experts agree that no single method is 100% effective, but a combination of natural barriers and beer traps can help reduce damage, without harming wildlife.