Slug Slayer

To my surprise, or perhaps very unexpectedly, the garden bed was crawling with slugs that were at least 8-9 cm long, have a good old munch on the Bok Choy plants. It was the first time that I had really had a good look at night, and I was amazed at the variety of insects (wood lice, centipedes, earwigs, slugs) that were all over the place. I duly picked off every single slug and threw them over the large brick wall that is our boundary with the road (we live on a corner block), and hopefully because they didn’t like their first experience of flying, so I think they may not be back in a hurry. I then had a look at the bed with the broccoli, and they were crawling all over the mulch and on some of the broccoli heads as well. I had been wondering what was nibbling at the tops, as I never seamed to find any white cabbage moth caterpillars on top. Those slugs were presented with free flying lessons as well.

Then over to the capsicums, radishes and beetroot. Not a single slug to be found in this bed. They mustn’t like these vegetables, which makes me think that they would make good companion plants for the bok choy. I inspected the bed containing the onions, garlic and spinach, and there were some very tiny (5mm) slugs on some of the spinach plants, but nothing near the onions or the garlic. All in all, I must have pick off at least 40 big fat slugs and 10 baby slugs. I didn’t see a single snail either, which surprised me.

I will make up some slug deterrent (coffee & water) tonight and drizzle it in between the rows to see if it makes a difference. If they have returned, they shall receive a second free flying lesson, and had better evolve wings mighty quick. If the coffee doesn’t work I will have to resort to a beer trap, but don’t really want to waste my home brew on slugs.

No-one messes with my organic garden, especially the slimy ones!