bane of my existence

SLUGS!

Ok...well they may not be the actual bane of my existence, but they come very close!  I can't tell you how frustrating it is to go out to the garden and find half eaten petunias, holey hosta and shredded zinnias.  If you're having this problem the cause is probably a very slimy one...slugs!  Nasty!  Bleh!

Here's the scoop.  Slugs are made up primarily of water and mucous (with a little bumpy skin thrown in).  They thrive in moist conditions and are fairly nocturnal in their eating habits.  They're gross and I despise them!  Left uncontrolled, they can destroy your garden.  I have had to replace many flowers already this year.

So what do you do?  Annihilate them!  Anyway you can.  Be merciless!  I know my gentle organic friends may take offense to my tactics but my thoughts are that I spend too much time and too much money to let some slimy creatures use my gardens as a free buffet.  How do you do it then?

1.      Salt.  (sort of melts them like the Wicked Witch of the West).  I have friends who go out in the evenings with their salt shakers and take care of their slugs that way.  Downside: you can only kill the ones you see and excessive salt can harm a garden.

2.       Beer.  Yup that's right.  Pour a little Pabst Blue Ribbon (or the ale of your choosing) in a shallow dish and strategically place it in your garden.  The slugs will crawl right in and drown!  They are attracted to the yeast in the beer.  Downside: big garden-lots of dishes and you have to empty that nastiness in the morning.  GROSS!

3.       Molluscicides..   Chemicals.  Slug poison.  Now we're talking.  The most common form is 'Bug-Geta'.  This particular metaldehyde comes in granular or pellet form; just sprinkle a handful of them around your affected plants (or along the entire garden if you're infested) and the slugs will DIE!  Downside:  can be costly, you can't use it in your vegetable garden and it can be harmful to dogs if eaten in large quantities.

I'm sure there are many, many other ways to control these disgusting creatures - I suggest Google.

Before I forget - they are tenacious and only need a moist surface to crawl over so check your window boxes and containers for them too.  Sneaky, slimy, disgusting things.