Trying to grow vegetables has many obstacles, none being as difficult as the always present garden slug. These sneaky little gastropods wander by night and eat the leaves and fruits of many plants. Once you have them, it is time to take quick action as they can be devastating in a short period of time. There are as many techniques to kill slugs as there are gardeners.
Having the problem myself, I consulted with my neighbour, who is a DOC employee, and I value his opinion. He promised me that even though I see him sneaking around his garden at 7 AM in the morning holding a bottle of beer, he is not drinking it, but is feeding it to his slugs. He promised me that slugs are all alcoholics and love beer. I was advised to put a plastic container with smooth sides, so they cant crawl out when drunk, in a hole close to the plants and fill it with cheap Kiwi beer, any Speight or Emerson would do, and the next morning you would find drowned drunken slugs by the dozen. Now, since my slugs are used to eating from the best Italian garden I argued that cheap Kiwi beer is not good enough for them and purchased some Peroni beer. Also plastic containers were not up to standard and glass was provided. After three days of feeding my slugs good beer I can come to one conclusion only – the more beer they drink, the more they eat, as I now have no Broccoli, Cabbage, Salad or Rocket left and have a lot of happy tipsy slugs.
I then remembered being a member of a Gardening group on Facebook and went researching. Soon I found a plethora of organic slug control remedies. The one I have opted for recommended blending chills, garlic and olive oil, sprayed on the leaves of the plants, which I duly did and will soon see what the effects on the slugs are. If these slugs have had any Italian influences in there lives, I would suspect they would compliment me on my the salad dressing, but comment on the shortage of enough salt and pepper, then continue ordering some red wine in stead of beer.
Back Yard Farmer 