every year I plant tons of seeds and nothing can grow because the slugs eat it before it gets big. Right now this is the milkweed I have. does anyone have any tips or tricks to deter slugs? I tried beer and I didn’t catch 1 slug.
by callme_coral
every year I plant tons of seeds and nothing can grow because the slugs eat it before it gets big. Right now this is the milkweed I have. does anyone have any tips or tricks to deter slugs? I tried beer and I didn’t catch 1 slug.
by callme_coral
13 Comments
I’m shocked. I can barely keep common milkweed in check in my yard. The babies pop up everywhere.
how did you use the beer? I found beer traps very effective but I’m not in cali, maybe you got some sober slugs over there.
Beer trap works reliably for me in SoCal, I’m surprised you say you didn’t catch any. Did you bury the full can so it’s flush with the ground surface? You may need several to make a dent in your local slug population. You can also try to using yeast and water to the same effect, they are attracted to the yeast.
~~Iron sulphate~~
Iron PHOSPHATE is a standard molluscicides
Cut the bottom out of a pot and put it over the plant
If you didn’t catch a single slug, how do you know it is slugs eating the plants? Are you going out at night and catching them in the act or making an assumption?
Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be. Use sluggo. Breaks down into normal soil components, safe for use around animals/kids.
Grow your milkweed in a pot first till its bigger. Pull multch away from bases. Add slug preditors and nematodes that eat slugs. That should reduce the population so its more balenced.
Eat the slugs.
Put animal hair on the ground around your plants. Molluscs hate crawling over it because it clogs up their mucus and renders them immobile. Works 100% of the time for me.
The shorter the hair, the better.
Pour Cheap beer in a shallow dish. Keep it out overnight. Collect slugs in the morning. Create an army of slugs to take down your enemy’s garden.
Mine are in a raised bed at waist height which makes it impossible for slugs to get to it.
I might try clearing all mulch from around them and keeping it bare dirt in the milkweed’s vicinity. Slugs are under things: logs, stones, pots, piles, mulch. And they’re out eating if it’s cool and moist enough. If it’s dry, on the other hand, problem solved.
If wet, or dewy at night, they’ll likely attack at those times. You can use a product from a hardware store, or manually remove them.
You can also try a cloche. I’ve used 2L soda bottles with the bottom cut out in a pinch.
https://preview.redd.it/uis7cd0jcqpg1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2d12e1ec44c54795451901f3e4c9fd3e55666313
I recommend a night mission to check what’s killing your plants. For me early in the season it’s slugs and some jolly polly, but now I’m seeing caterpillars (which i just manually move). The key is to grow in mass and sometimes plant “sucker” patches that will attract them.