Slugs and Such

Yuck! Nothing worse than walking through the garden barefoot and suddenly you feel something wet, slimy, and disgusting on your sole. You reel back in horrow only to discover that you're outnumbered on all fronts. What's a gardener to do? Fear not, there are several things you can try, some of which actually work.
1: Barrier plants- Huh? Yup, barrier plants. Slugs, it would seem, are fussy eaters. Planting things like red luttuce, chives, garlic, and mint will turn a slugs nose skyward faster than ... well, pretty fast. Another benifit is that other critters tend to shy away from these plants as well.
2: Beer traps (Editors note: Don't drink the beer) An old folk remedy is to set a pie tin near your affected plants, sink the tin into the soil (however, leave the rim just above the ground so as not to kill benificial insects as well), fill the tin with beer, and watch as the slugs die by the 1000's every night ... no, really. However, it isn't hte beer itself that kills, Drowning is what does the trick. The slugs are attracted to the yeast in the beer, climb down to get a snoot-full, and drown.
3: Water your garden only in the early hours. Slugs prefere wet areas to wile away the day and wait for nightfall. If you allow your soil to dry out early, you deprive slugs of a constantly moist area to wallow in. This can greatly reduce slug populations.
4: Along the lines of dampness, make sure you use mulch that doesn't provide good, comfortable hiding places for the nasty slugs. A good suggestion is to salt your mulch, but be careful not to oversalt, we wouldn't want the slugs to develope high blood pressure.
5: In the same line as mulch, we can ring the plants with egg shells beleive it or not. crush them to create nice sharp edges which the slugs find irritating.
6: Copper- A slugs worst nightmare. Buy small copper strips to ring your plants with. Slugs find copper irritating to the touch.
7: While slugs like a good cup of coffee like the rest of us, they always drink Decafe, why? Caffiene is toxic to them. Spreading coffee grounds around a plant will ward off slugs pretty effectivelty.
8: Diatomaceous earth is a product you can buy from your gardening supply store, and is a fairly good deterrent to slugs. The product is a mix of jagged microscopic seafloor creatures which slugs can't tolorate crawling over. Read the instructions though, you must wear a mask and preferably saftey glasses as well as this fine powder can get in the eyes and throat causing you the irritationinstead of your slug friends.
9: Wood Ash is also good as long as it remains dry. A slug will dehydrate while trying to crawl over it. Be careful about how much you use though as it can change your soil's pH level.
10: Slug Wrangling. Placing objects that will remain moist underneath during the day will attract slugs from miles around ... well, ok, maybe not miles in human terms, but in slug terms perhaps. In the morning, simply go out, turn the pieces of wet cardboard over, and you should see a nice assortment of slugs shivering in fear
That about does it for this edition of "SlugFest", tune in tomorrow for more great news on various other infamous creatures that invade our paradise.