Being engaged in growing vegetables in greenhouses, you immediately need to prepare for the fact that slugs may start to “boost” you. These pests love a humid environment, which, in fact, occurs in greenhouse areas when greenhouse construction technologies are not implemented or plant care is not carried out correctly.

If you do not pay attention to this type of pests, then in open ground conditions, perhaps everything will be resolved by itself, but in the case of greenhouse cultivation, the summer resident risks losing, if not all, then most of the crop. Therefore, as soon as you notice at least one individual of even a small size, you should immediately sound the alarm and try to process the entire greenhouse area as quickly as possible. In general, experienced summer residents understand that than to get rid of slugs later, it is better to prevent their appearance in advance!

Preventive measures against slugs

The greenhouse should be completely well lit and ventilated. Air, stuffiness should not accumulate in any of the zones. Therefore, between all plants there should be some space for good airflow. This must be taken into account even when planting, since the density of grown plants will not only lead to the appearance of pests, in particular slugs, but also cause some diseases.

Be sure to ensure that the humidity in the greenhouse does not increase, this is what provokes the appearance of slugs to a greater extent. Therefore, water the plants properly, do not let them rot from moisture. Cold can also lead to slugs.

There should not be any “trash” in the greenhouse, only clean, weed-treated soil and seedlings. If bags, stones, pieces of paper, cups, removed weeds, etc. lie on the surface of the soil, then the first slugs can be found right under them.

Slug fight

When they didn’t have time to take preventive measures, because they didn’t know much, and the slugs nevertheless “crawled”, there is no need to despair! Today, there are a large number of ways to deal with slugs, which allows you to remove them from the greenhouse very quickly!

The first thing to do is to ventilate the room. When there are still very few slugs, they can be collected by hand and thrown away. When the slugs really attack, you need to use sprays with chemical solutions and substances.

• Granular metaldehyde (5%) allows you to poison slugs. The substance in the granules is laid out on the surface of the soil, the granules perform the principle of bait, after eating them, the slugs die.
• Plants and soil around them should be sprayed with a solution of copper sulfate or iron sulfate.
• Hydrated lime and powdered superphosphate are also used.
• The surface of the soil after spraying in any way is sprinkled with wood ash or tobacco gutted directly from cigarettes.
• Plants that have chosen slugs can be treated with a solution of potassium salt, a solution of superphosphate.
• Dry mustard (two packs) is diluted in a bucket of water and the plants are sprayed with this composition.
• They arrange a real hunt for slugs - they prepare traps for them and then collect pests and throw them away. Traps are wet rags, plywood, cellophane, etc., you can also leave some of the plucked weeds or burdock sheets.
• It sounds strange, but frogs can be settled in the greenhouse, they eat slugs while no chemistry and no worries for the owner.

It is advisable to treat plants and the soil surface from slugs in the late afternoon, since it is at night that the pests are most active, and this way you can remove more of them. Any treatment must be performed at least two times, as slugs may reappear.

Slugs are very fond of plants with large delicate leaves. They often appear in dense plantings, especially in wet weather. Strawberries and berries suffer greatly from them.

What to do to protect plantings from these garden monsters?

Slugs are nocturnal, hiding under foliage, plant debris during the day, mainly where there is shade and moisture. Therefore, you should not thicken plantings, remove weeds in time, especially in rainy summers.

Before planting garden crops, you can make small grooves, on the bottom of which you can pour, for example, ash or tobacco dust, or lime or ground hot pepper. Such grooves will become an obstacle on the way of the slug to the plants.

Remedies for slugs in the garden and in the garden

You can also save plants by scattering potash salt or superphosphate, as well as other mineral fertilizers around the plantations.

You can destroy slugs with such special preparations as Meta, Slug Eater, Ulitsid, but only if the chemical directly hits them. It is necessary to stop spraying plantings with chemicals 3 weeks before the ripening of fruits and berries, that is how much time is needed to remove chemicals from the treated plants. Or otherwise they say to observe the waiting periods, and this is the period of decay of chemicals into elements harmless to the human body.

Folk remedies for fighting slugs

Harmless to fruits, but poisonous to slugs mustard powder. Dilute 150 g of dry mustard per 10 liters of water and spray all the bushes that the slug spoils from above with this solution.

Slugs do not tolerate high temperatures, this fact can also be used in the fight against them. It is effective to mulch the beds with a film, especially a dark one. At night, slugs gather under it, as it is very humid there. And during the day, when the soil is heated by the rays of the sun, they die, unable to withstand the high temperature under the film.

Watering with hot water is detrimental to these pests. This can be done, for example, on cabbage. Water is heated to 40 ° C and poured directly on top of the pumpkins, while the slugs die. And cabbage can withstand watering at temperatures up to 60 ° C. It is advisable to carry out such processing late in the evening, it is at this time that the pests crawl out of their shelters onto the foliage.

The old "old-fashioned" method of dealing with slugs: dilute a quarter cup of table vinegar (9%) in a bucket of water and pour cabbage with this solution right on top in the evening.

set up these beer traps

Slugs love beer. Therefore, you can set traps for them with such bait in the garden. From their greed, they simply simply drown in this drink.

You can mulch the soil around the plants with fresh sawdust. Sawdust of coniferous trees is best suited for this purpose. Also, many gardeners note that mulching strawberry bushes with coniferous litter gives a good effect.

A very effective way to deal with slugs: dilute two tablespoons of ammonia per liter of water and spray the plants that these pests love with this solution. It is also better to do this procedure in the evening, so that the solution falls on the pests themselves, who crawled out of shelters at this time of day. This solution does no harm to flowers and fruits, but destroys slugs completely.

There is also such an effective remedy for slugs: pour 1 kg of fresh or 0.2 kg of dry pods of hot pepper with 10 liters of water in a closed enamel or plastic container and let stand for 2 days. Then boil the infusion for an hour, cool, grind the pods, close the concentrate tightly and put in a dark, cool place. For spraying, take about 150 ml per 10 liters of water.

Slug fighting video

Do you have slugs in your garden? What do you think is the most effective remedy for slugs? Do you use folk remedies or chemicals in your garden to control pests? Please share your ways and methods that helped clear the area of ​​slugs and snails.

Tomatoes are attacked by various pests. Of particular danger to plants are slugs, which multiply very quickly. If you do not notice their appearance in the garden in time, they can pretty much spoil the leaves and fruits on tomatoes. Destroying pests is easier when their population is small.

As a means of getting rid of slugs, they use chemicals, folk methods, as well as agricultural and mechanical methods.

Description of the pest

Slugs are mollusks that have lost their shells during evolutionary change. Outwardly, they are indistinguishable from snails when they have not yet formed a shell. The body is elongated. The slug moves due to muscle contractions. The skin is covered with mucus, which maintains the normal functioning of the whole organism.

Interesting fact!

The mucus secreted by the mollusk helps to scare away predators, and also improves gliding during movement.

On the head of the slugs are elongated tentacles that act as eyes and a tactile receptor. The pulmonary opening can be seen behind the head. Mollusks are hermaphrodites, but they need to mate with other individuals to reproduce. Fertilization occurs immediately in both slugs. One lays up to 30 eggs in the soil. Over the summer, an adult slug can lay up to 500 eggs.

Mollusks move to vegetable gardens from the forest or meadow, where their natural habitat is located. Mass reproduction is affected by the prevailing weather conditions. Most often, slugs appear when:

• warm and snowy winters, which allows them to survive in the thickness of the soil;
• warm and rainy spring;
• cool and humid summer.

From the attacks of slugs suffer: tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, strawberries, grapes, fruit trees, cabbage, seedlings, sorrel, etc.

Harm from slugs

The appearance of clams in a garden with tomatoes will bring considerable damage:

Slug Control Methods

Various methods can be used in the fight against slugs. The main ones include: folk recipes, chemicals, agrotechnical and mechanical methods. Folk and agrotechnical and mechanical methods will allow getting rid of small populations. But to cope with large colonies quickly and efficiently - chemicals.

Folk ways to destroy slugs

Among the effective folk recipes are:

Infusion based on capsicum red pepper

To prepare the decoction you will need: 10 liters of water and half a kilogram of dried red pepper. Grind the pods to a powder. Pour the resulting powder into a ten-liter pan. Insist for two days. Then bring the mixture to a boil and again leave to infuse for two days.

Application: dissolve a glass of pepper infusion in 10 liters of water, add 50 ml of liquid soap, stir. Pour into sprayer. Treat plants completely. Use pepper mixture before flowering.

Infusion of garlic

Grind three large heads of garlic, pour ten liters of water. Insist for a day. Strain and spray tomatoes.

Dry mustard solution

Dissolve 30 grams of dry mustard in 100 ml of water. The mixture should stand for 60 minutes in a warm place. Then dilute it in 6 liters of water. Spray the resulting solution on the plants and soil in the garden.

Agrotechnical ways to get rid of slugs

Timely care of the beds will protect the tomatoes from the invasion of slugs. If the mollusks did appear, various traps will allow you to get rid of them.

Slug killer chemicals

You can quickly get rid of slugs with special chemicals.

• "Thunder" - is a blue crystals with a specific smell that attracts slugs, but repels birds, which can take the pellets for food. After using the drug, the slug dies within 1-2 hours.

Application: Spread the preparation in the places of the greatest accumulation of pests. One fifteen-gram package with the substance is enough for five square meters. The duration of the crystals is 15-20 days. If the slugs in the area are not completely destroyed, lay out new pellets.

• "Ulicid" - refers to intestinal-contact substances for the destruction of slugs. After contact with the drug, the molluscs die in a week. The consumption per square meter is 5 crystals.

The drug "Thunder" refers to toxic, and "Ulitsid" low-toxic. Lay out the crystals in rubber gloves and a respirator so as not to get poisoned.

Preventive measures against slugs

1. Plow your garden every year.
2. Mow meadow grass around the land.
3. Do not leave tops, weeds on the beds in the fall. As soon as all the vegetables are removed from the garden, they need to be burned.
4. Plant strong-smelling plants around the perimeter of the land, the smell of which repels mollusks. Slugs do not like aroma: mint, lemon balm, lavender, garlic, mustard, chicory.
5. Scatter in the garden in spring:

• coffee grounds;
• tobacco dust;
• wood ash;
• dry mustard;
• wood ash;
• red ground pepper.

As soon as the slug gets its body on one of the ingredients, it will become irritated. Therefore, he immediately leaves the territory of the garden.

One of them is a slug, a mollusk, whose “diet” includes more than a hundred cultivated plants. He is always not averse to eating stems, buds, leaves. and the fruits of many vegetables, so every self-respecting gardener should know: how to get rid of this annoying and objectionable "neighbor".

general information

The first sign of the presence of slugs in the garden are small holes with traces of silver, appearing on the leaves of vegetable and fruit crops. There are many in nature.

At the same time, these pests give the greatest preference to plants with succulent large leaves, for example, cabbage or beets, eating not only their green part, but also the fruits themselves.

Also, garden slugs are a common cause of plant diseases such as powdery mildew, so it is very important when planting them to think about how to protect yourself from this unpleasant problem and, if necessary, get rid of it as quickly as possible.

How to fight?

on cabbage

Cabbage slugs and caterpillars can be a real disaster for a gardener. Cabbage pests can be seen in the photo. So, slugs on cabbage: how to deal with them? You can poison them in such ways:

Chemicals:

1. metaldehyde. The granules of this pesticide must be scattered on the beds with vegetables and berry bushes. Slugs eat it and soon die from acute intestinal poisoning. This tool is considered the most effective.
2. Slaked lime and copper sulphate in powder form. After watering or rain, they pollinate the aisles of cabbage. Caustic substances, hitting the belly of a mollusk, cause severe burns on his delicate skin, causing the slug to die. Such treatments are best done during a period of high activity of slugs, which falls in the evening.
3. Furnace ash and bleach.
4. Tobacco dust, etc.

What slugs look like on cabbage, see the photo below.

Folk ways:
How to treat cabbage from slugs?

• Exhausted beer. To do this, plastic cups must be placed near the heads of cabbage, half filled with beer, dug into the ground for stability.
  The very next morning after such an operation, you will see dead pests that have eaten a foamy drink.

  The procedure must be repeated two or three times, and the slugs can be safely forgotten until the end of the season;

• Grapefruit peel. In halves of the peel, taken from an exotic fruit, make small openings-entrances and place them throughout the site.

  Lured by a pleasant aroma, slugs will climb into such traps, but they will not be able to get out of them. So in the morning it remains only to collect them and destroy them;

• If cabbage is eaten by slugs: what to do? You can use roofing material, trimming boards and pieces of burlap. Such traps must be placed on vegetable beds and leave for a day. When the slugs crawl there for an "overnight stay", you need to collect them and destroy them.

On pepper

Often the slug eats the leaves of sweet bell pepper, eating huge holes in them, which causes great harm to plants and negatively affects their development and productivity. Thus, slugs on peppers cause great damage to the gardener.

Naturally, the first thought that comes to mind for every gardener is how to save peppers from caterpillars and slugs and how to process the crop in order to enjoy their delicious juicy fruits at the end of summer.

The protection is as follows:

Chemicals:

1. Preparations based on metaldehyde ("Thunderstorm", "Meta"). Such a "treat" will attract the molluscs and lead them to inevitable death. In addition, metaldehyde-based chemicals have low toxicity. and do not harm the environment, including earthworms that live in the beds.
2. Superphosphate. To achieve the desired effect, peppers need to be powdered with this fertilizer, taking it at the rate of 30-40 mg / m3.

Slugs on pepper: how to deal with them in folk ways?

• white vinegar solution. To prepare the working solution, ½ cup of table vinegar is taken for a 10 liter bucket of water. The plants themselves and the soil under them are sprayed. It is best to do this in the evening, when the pests go to feed;
• Boiling water. The soft tender body of slugs is very afraid of high temperatures. Moreover, even 40 degrees Celsius, harmless for many plants, can become fatal for them. So, in order to remove slugs from bell peppers, they just need to be poured with water brought to a temperature of +60 degrees Celsius;
• Eggshell. Another good way to get rid of the "annoying neighbor" in our garden: scatter broken eggshells on the beds, the sharp edges of which injure the delicate skin of the mollusks, leaving deep cuts on it. Thus, they will be destroyed in a short time.

On cucumbers

One of the most popular agricultural crops, grown in many suburban areas are cucumbers. However, their slugs do not bypass, spoiling the quantity and quality of the future harvest. In most cases, they choose young fruits, hence the question arises: How to protect yourself from slugs on young cucumbers?

Moreover, they feel completely calm not only in the open field, but also in greenhouses and greenhouses.

That is, gardeners are faced with a rather serious problem: how to store and preserve vegetables, to get a good harvest of cucumbers in the shortest possible time?

To do this, the following measures must be taken:

1. Regular inspection of plants and keeping the greenhouse clean. It should not contain vegetable waste, pieces of covering material and other debris. Thus, it is possible to prevent the appearance of slugs and other pests in it.
2. The construction of obstacles to the movement of molluscs. A good option: clean river sand, which will make their movements even slower and more difficult.
3. Making traps out of old rags mugs, boards and pieces of cardboard.

On tomatoes

Tomatoes are also one of the favorite "foods" of slugs, which they eat with great appetite and eagerness.

Therefore, the most important task of any gardener is a prompt and competent solution to the issue: how to remove these unpleasant creatures from your site?

You can do this in the following way:

• spreading dried nettles under tomato plants, which these pests fear like fire. Such a simple manipulation will discourage them from "encroach" on these plants;
• having made "obstacle strips" for slugs from ash and slaked lime;
• watering garden crops with an infusion of garlic or onions, which mollusks do not tolerate "in the spirit";
• prevent thickening of landings. Optimal planting pattern: 60x70 and 70x70 cm.

Moreover, in this way, it is possible to plant not only tall, but also low-growing varieties, making sure that their branches do not end up on the ground.

On potatoes

Omnipresent and almost omnivorous slugs do not bypass one more vegetable, enjoying great love and respect of many gardeners. It's potatoes, of course. the foliage and tubers of which they eat, causing great harm to plants.

That is, it is very important to know how to protect this crop and, if necessary, quickly remove the voracious pest from it.

To remove a slug on a potato, you can use one of the simple but effective methods, for example:

1. Spray potato tops with tincture of wormwood.
2. Having placed horseradish leaves and roots between potato bushes, which will repel pests.
3. Scattering finely chopped river shells over the beds.

Fighting the mollusk in this way, you must always monitor that so that loopholes do not form in the “rough barrier”, through which the pest can freely penetrate potatoes and other plants.

On a strawberry

If the slug is rather cool towards potatoes and tomatoes and eats them in quite rare cases, then he eats juicy, ripe strawberries with great pleasure, see the photo on the right.

Often on corroded and deformed fruits, appeared on the beds after the night hunting of the pest - a picture quite familiar to almost every gardener.

What to do in such cases? Of course, fight. Moreover, there are very simple ways that allow you to get rid of slugs on strawberries quickly and effectively.

For example:

• mulching the earth between berry bushes with coniferous needles(best spruce). Despite their voracity, these mollusks will not dare to get close to them on a prickly "coniferous carpet" and your landings will be safe;
• seating around the perimeter of strawberry beds and parsley in its center, which is an excellent pest repellent;
• processing of berry bushes with a strong solution of table salt.

If shellfish appeared on ripe berries, in no case should you treat them with chemicals, as harmful substances will penetrate the fruits and make them toxic!

on cherry

Fight the slugs that appeared on the cherry you can use the so-called "sweet traps" made from jars or boxes of sour cream or yogurt, filled with kvass, fruit drink or juice and fixed around a tree trunk.

Falling into such traps they can't get out of there so they only need to be collected and destroyed. Traps must be updated every day, in the morning.

The favorite habitat of slugs are soils with strong moisture, overgrown with thick grass in which they hide from the sun's rays. So, their appearance in the garden can be prevented by diverting stagnant water from the plot and removing excess vegetation from it.

That is, the best prevention against these pests will be regular weeding and mowing the grass on the sides of the site. It is also necessary to clean up household and construction debris in it in a timely manner, since slugs love to settle on its heaps.

Good help in the fight against annoying clams may be their natural enemies: animals that eat them with great pleasure.

Want to learn how to get slugs out of the yard once and for all? Settle a hedgehog, gray or green toads on it, and this issue will be resolved by itself.

In addition, garden crops can be overlaid with a collection of plants that the pest does not like. These include mint, wormwood, lemon balm and tansy.

Conclusion

In a word, slug control in the yard, or else, it will be quite effective subject to regular and high-quality care for it.

This is exactly the case when timely prevention can give a really good result, therefore, it should not be neglected in any case.

If the “insidious villain” nevertheless managed to get into your garden, you can get rid of him without much difficulty using one of the popular methods convenient for you (the methods of dealing with slugs are described in detail).

Almost all of them are quite simple, safe and effective. Well, in severely neglected cases, you can use chemicals containing metaldehyde. And you can forget about unpleasant neighbors once and for all.

Useful video!

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Fighting slugs in the garden Good day, readers! Gardeners are actively auditing their gardens for the presence of pests such as slugs.

We were convinced of this from our own experience, traveling around the city by public transport.

A full minibus of gardeners, talking on their favorite topics. And then one pensioner sighs that she has all the gladioli in holes.

What was my answer about slugs. If these pests have overcome you, then the fight against slugs in the garden with folk remedies will be productive after the following recommendations.

Slugs and snails. Control and fight with gentle methods

Slugs and snails are big garden pests! In hot and dry weather, they hide in secluded places in the garden, where it is always dark, cool and humid. And at night, when dew falls, or on rainy days, slugs and snails crawl out to hunt in the garden, sometimes completely destroying the leaves of young garden plants and ripened crops.

Slugs and snails prefer fruit and vegetable crops, in which they willingly devour not only leaves, but also stems, flowers and fruits. Snails and slugs do not disdain many ornamental plants.

A plant deprived of leaves has a very limited ability to carry out photosynthesis, without flowers, the process of pollination and fruit set is under threat, and a crop bitten and stained with mucus is a very unpleasant and annoying sight.

All this, not to mention the appearance of the plant spoiled by snails. Undoubtedly, snails and slugs are malicious garden pests. However, the garden ecosystem is very extensive and diverse, and each representative of the fauna plays a role in it.

This role is not always purely negative or positive, and the animal itself can be classified without a shadow of a doubt as pests or helpers. Thus, slugs and snails perform an important sanitary function in the garden, processing dead or damaged plant remains.

Therefore, an organic approach to gardening involves soft control measures, primarily aimed at strengthening plants and limiting the access of slugs and snails to vulnerable plants.

And the chemical destruction of snails and slugs, even with the help of the so-called. "soft" pesticides - the most extreme, forced control measure, which is applied pointwise in short periods of time.

Harm Prevention

The very first preventive measure to protect against slugs and snails is competent gardening:

• technologies for improving soil fertility and structure,
• proper selection of plants
• timeliness of all garden work,
• maintenance of garden hygiene,
• attraction of birds and other useful fauna for natural pest control (in this case, these are lizards, frogs, toads, fireflies and some other beetles, as well as hedgehogs),
• the right combination of plants,
• rotation of vegetable crops and much more.

All these measures contribute to the strengthening of plants, because strong plants can resist the attacks of garden pests and diseases much better.

Means of mechanical control Physical barriers for snails and slugs include special plastic gutters that are attached around the perimeter of prefabricated ridges.

Such gutters are filled with water, which serves as a mechanical obstacle for snails and slugs.

Any dry porous materials, as well as fine gravel, crushed shells and eggshells are unpleasant for slugs and snails, therefore they are well suited as row-spacing filler. It should be borne in mind that in rainy weather their effectiveness is significantly reduced.

The action of a special ecological granular material (Slug Stoppa Granules) is based on the same principle, which is scattered around the plants and acts throughout the season. Granules create a physical barrier for slugs and snails: they absorb moisture and mucus, dry out the surface of their bodies, making it impossible for pests to move.

Wide plastic rims with a bent edge are also on sale, which are fixed in the ground around the plants and keep snails and slugs out of the plant.

Planting vegetables in raised beds or in containers, tying legumes, tomatoes and cucurbits to supports in time, using clear plastic caps (like the bottom halves of large plastic water bottles) and plastic covers for young vulnerable plants all make desirable plants for snails and slugs are physically less accessible.

Attention!

You can collect snails and slugs by hand or with a special device in the evening or after rain, in order to then take them somewhere away from gardens and cultivated plantings, give them as feed to domestic chickens or destroy them.

Live slugs and snails should not be placed in a cold composter, as adults will lay eggs under favorable conditions. Special traps for slugs and snails are a bowl covered with an umbrella-roof.

The trap is set so that the entrances are at ground level. The bowl is filled with beer, fruit juice or other bait (the delicious smell attracts snails and slugs), the roof prevents rainwater and debris from getting inside.

In the absence of such a trap, pour the bait into old unnecessary bowls and dig them flush with the soil surface in the beds and flower beds with the plants most beloved by snails. Check and empty the traps regularly in the morning.

Distracting maneuvers include old leaves scattered among plantings and tops of plants loved by snails and slugs (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, comfrey, etc.).

I personally successfully use this method in a greenhouse, where it helps to keep in check not only snails and slugs, but also wood lice: being carried away by eating this waste, they no longer crawl to growing vegetables. Periodically, leaves with garden pests eating them can be collected, replacing them with new ones.

Means of electrical control

Garden centers have self-adhesive tapes made of copper, rims, or copper-coated covering material (brand name Shocka).

Contact with copper gives the clams a slight electrical shock, so they will not want to cross the copper barrier. Recently, headbands with a small battery have appeared on the market, which give snails and slugs a small electric shock when crossing.

The use of the product is possible from spring to autumn (soil temperature should not be lower than +5 C), it is most effective in wet weather.

The advantages of this biological "killer" of slugs and snails are in the duration of action, efficiency, absolute safety for people and the environment, as well as ease of use. Microorganisms should be diluted with water, and then pour the desired plantings from the watering can.

Within a week, slugs and snails die, one watering is enough for a month and a half, according to the manufacturer. The inconvenience lies in the short shelf life of the product (3-4 weeks from the date of release, because the microorganisms are “canned” in a living state), as well as the need to constantly keep it in the cold.

Means of phyto-control

Plants that slugs and snails do not like and try to avoid are primarily garlic, as well as many (but by no means all!) Aromatic plants (lavender, sage, santolina, thyme, rosemary, laurel, etc.), which they never touch.

Garlic is used by manufacturers of special herbal infusions that repel slugs and snails. Infusions of garlic, hot pepper and mustard are well-known folk remedies for the fight against slugs and snails.

Chemical Controls

On sale there are granules of metaldehyde (in Russia it is sold under the trademarks Groza and Meta) - an effective tool that attracts and kills slugs and snails. The packaging says that the product is poisonous to pets and people if it enters their digestive system.

The high toxicity of the product is also indicated by the fact that Bitrex (the most bitter substance) is added to it to scare away animals and children if they suddenly decide to feast on beautiful blue granules.

Manufacturers claim that when used correctly, the product is completely harmless to people, pets and the environment, but warnings are often found in the horticultural press. Metaldehyde should be stored and used with great care.

Wash vegetables and herbs especially carefully, if you used metaldehyde in the garden, make sure that the granules do not remain hidden in the lettuce. I scatter blue granules exclusively around the hosta and only in early spring when young leaves emerge from the ground and are especially vulnerable to slugs and snails.

Caffeine against slugs and snails?

Caffeine, in the form of an aqueous solution applied to the soil or plant leaves, repels and kills slugs and snails, presumably by destroying their nervous systems. This conclusion was reached by Hawaiian scientists from the US Department of Agriculture as a result of a series of experiments, as reported by Nature.

According to the observations of scientists, a 1- or 2% solution of caffeine kills even large individuals (although it discolors the leaves of some plants), and a 0.1% solution introduces pests into confusion, accelerating their heartbeat, and scares them away from plantations. To get a 0.1% caffeine solution, you can, for example, dissolve a double dose of instant coffee in a cup of water.

source: http://www.countrysideliving.net/

How to get rid of slugs in the garden

Slug, another name for the pest "slug", is the real enemy of homeowners. The question of how to get rid of slugs is sore for them. Why is the pest so dangerous?

Description, features, life cycle

The slug is a relative of the snail, only without a shell. This is one of the most common pests in home gardens. The gastropod terrestrial mollusk moves by contraction of muscles. You can determine its presence by eaten leaves, holes in tubers, heads of cabbage and fruits.

Ruthlessly cracking down on almost all horticultural crops, it causes irreparable harm to cabbage and lettuce leaves, devours cucumbers, tomatoes, all berries, many types of ornamental plants, and with great pleasure destroys stocks of fruits and vegetables harvested for the winter.

Only by knowing how to get rid of slugs and prevent their spread, you can protect the crop from the pest. Its rapid reproduction is facilitated by high humidity and relatively low air temperature.

Dry years significantly reduce the activity of slugs: pests produce fewer offspring, feed worse, and therefore cause less harm. The slug waits out the unfavorable period, turning into a cocoon. But during the rains, he feasts in the gardens and, which is especially dangerous, at the same time spreads fungal and viral diseases through plants.

From overwintered eggs, slugs appear in May, and after a month and a half, each individual produces offspring - in just over the summer, several hundred new slugs, which, growing up, also begin to breed. Therefore, in order to get rid of slugs, it is important to use the whole range of measures aimed not only at their destruction, but also at preventing their appearance on the site.

Preventive Measures Prevention is the best remedy for growing problems.

Getting rid of slugs in the area is more difficult than preventing their spread. What to do?

Preparations, chemical and biological agents

Much to the happiness of amateur gardeners, there are many ways to deal with slugs. Special preparations for slugs (Meta, Thunderstorm, Slug Eater, Bros), containing metaldehyde, have a detrimental effect on them.

The chemical in the form of granules is distributed along the perimeter of the planted plants, as well as between the rows. It is important to remember that it is better to carry out the treatment 20 days before the crop ripens, to protect pets from eating the chemical.

The poison is effective even after two weeks of rain. But in wet weather, it is better to refuse to use it, as an ineffective remedy.

• On the contrary, only in a humid environment does a biological slug remedy containing the microscopic nematodes Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodit “work” (pictured right). It operates at positive temperatures (above + 5 ° C), but so far it is more common in Europe.
• Visually similar to a powder, this slug remedy does not harm the environment and humans. The disadvantage can be considered a short shelf life of the drug - no more than 20 days, and certain conditions - only in the refrigerator. Safe modern means help get rid of slugs.
• These include, for example, biological preparations containing iron phosphate. They cause dehydration of the slug's body, after which the pest dies underground. The substance itself decomposes over time into iron and phosphate, which are organically present in the soil.
• Soil treatment under cultivated plantings with superphosphate or crushed copper sulphate mixed with sand helps to get rid of slugs in case of a large accumulation of pests.

Also, plants treated with copper-containing preparations (Bordeaux liquid, copper hydroxide, cuproxate, copper chloride, cupritox, abiga-peak, cupricol, cupravit, cuprox, river) do not attract slugs.

Copper-impregnated strips and covering material protect plants from voracious molluscs. But such remedies for slugs are still rare on the market. On sale there are traps for snails and slugs with a special bait included.

Mechanical methods, improvised and folk remedies

In the evening they will be easy to collect and destroy. The method will be effective if it is repeated several times in a row. You can sketch out baits from melon, watermelon, pumpkin peels. Slugs are nocturnal. At this time of the day they crawl out to fish, so at dawn they can also be neutralized.

Attention!

Mustard powder diluted in water has a poisonous effect. A composition of equal proportions of ground pepper, wood ash, and salt will help get rid of slugs. It is scattered on the soil, after which obligatory loosening is carried out up to a depth of 5 cm.

Watering with hot water heated to +40 ° C is considered a disastrous measure. This tool is applicable only to protect the cabbage. Along the perimeter of the beds, you can dig grooves into which ash mixed with the same amount of tobacco dust is poured. The procedure is repeated after two weeks.

The creation of artificial barriers has an impeccable effect. Slugs do not like to crawl on coarse sand, crushed shells, nut and egg shells, sawdust, lime, pine and spruce needles, because all these items cut the abdomen. Kitchen salt, soot just corrodes them. They will definitely not go through such an obstacle.

• A cut plastic bottle or a special rim with a bent edge will become an insurmountable obstacle to a crawling pest. Install them near the desired plant (caputa, hostas) or around the entire planting, they will help get rid of a large number of slugs.
• Slugs do not like coffee grounds, use it in pest control.
• A good effect is given by a solution prepared from 1 liter of water and 2 tablespoons of ammonia. Spraying is done in the evening, when the pests come out of their shelters.
• Spraying with a tincture of water and hot pepper pods is considered a proven folk method.

It is impossible not to note the great love of monsters for beer. Two simple, but rather original ways of using it deserve attention:

1. Large fresh burdock leaves should be placed in a bowl of beer and soaked, and spread evenly over the garden late in the evening. By morning, all the leaves will be covered with slugs. It remains only to collect them and neutralize them.
2. A cut plastic bottle with a small amount of intoxicating drink is dug into the ground. Slugs fall right into it or are nearby, 2-3 of these treats will allow you to forget about pests for the whole season.

How not to harm

Folk methods of struggle It must be remembered that terrestrial mollusks are part of the general ecological system of household plots.

Their complete destruction with the help of chemicals is an extreme and undesirable measure. It is much more useful to use folk remedies or the plants themselves.

Do not forget that parsley, dill, garlic, as well as lavender, sage, peonies repel some pests. An equally effective measure can be a small pond that attracts snails and slugs.

A corner of the uncultivated territory will become a real salvation of horticultural crops. Frogs, hedgehogs, various bugs that eat pests will settle on the site. And birdhouses will attract natural enemies of slugs to the site.

Crows, jackdaws and poultry also eat the pest. To save garden plants, all measures are good, but it is best to try to avoid the use of chemicals and try to get rid of slugs with folk remedies or biological ones.

source: http://www.pro-rasteniya.ru/

Folk methods of dealing with slugs

Agree, slugs are a rather unpleasant attack. First, they spoil almost every strawberry. Then they systematically move to tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, gnawing holes in the fruits, and sometimes even settling in them.

The same slugs damage cucumbers and cabbages, eat out depressions in the roots of carrots and beets. Is there no escape from this? You will have to deal with slugs in a complex way, and the best remedy is prevention.

In principle, gastropod mollusks have enough enemies in nature, only they are not so common in our gardens. They are eaten with great pleasure by hedgehogs, frogs and toads. True, in the conditions of our sites, quite often these natural enemies simply have nowhere to stumble, and therefore they bypass the gardens.

Given the predilection of gastropods for a humid environment, it is necessary to deprive them of this environment: to make drainage of the site and divert stagnant water from it. This is measure number one. It inhibits the development of slugs and reduces their harmfulness and thinning of dense plantings.

Slugs do not bypass the thickets of grass, where you can hide well from the sun's rays that are detrimental to them. Therefore, as a preventive measure, timely removal of weeds and mowing of grass along the roadsides of the site is recommended. Make their life rough!

Slugs and snails do not like rough surfaces. It is necessary to pour insurmountable for them strips of coarse-grained sand, crushed egg or nut shells around those plants where gastropods were seen, creating a kind of prickly barriers.

But here you need to regularly monitor that gaps do not form in the wall through which an insidious and gluttonous enemy can penetrate. An excellent tool for repelling slugs are crushed river shells with sharp edges, which are scattered in ribbons between the beds.

• If possible, then mulching your plantings with pine needles will give truly phenomenal results (this is especially true, of course, for spruce needles). Slugs will immediately begin to avoid encroaching on plants protected by a thick coniferous carpet.
• Under plants of tomato, pepper or eggplant, to which slugs are great lovers, you can lay out dried nettle plants. Slugs are afraid of them, and if there are enough nettles, they will prefer to bypass this place. Treat yourself to a beer!
• Slugs and snails can’t resist beer, even if it’s stale (they are true connoisseurs of this drink and, according to German gardeners, prefer its dark varieties). You can take advantage of this addiction by breaking glasses into the ground and filling them halfway with beer.
• Especially the immoderate simply drown in beer, the more abstemious “fall off” next to the “life-giving source”. The method is original and, as it was said, very effective - two or three such “feasts” and you can forget about slugs until the end of the season.
• Instead of glasses, other containers are also suitable. For example, in the most low areas, you can install a whole basin, or you can get by with glasses made from plastic bottles. Or take whole plastic bottles, pour some beer and lay flat on the ground, crumpling one side a little so that the bottles become flat and do not roll around.

It is worth noting that molluscs especially avoid substrates such as ash, superphosphate or lime. Superphosphate by today's standards is, of course, an expensive thing, so it's easier to stop at ash or lime.

Perhaps the simplest remedy is to sprinkle the aisles with lime after rain or watering, when the slugs begin to move actively. Getting on strips of lime, they burn their abdomen and die. You can take not pure lime, but mixed with ash or tobacco dust (1: 1).

In the absence of rain, the soil is thus cultivated late in the evening or at night, when the slugs are on the soil or on the plants. Soil treatment is periodically repeated (after 7-15 days), which leads to the gradual death of mollusks.

The main thing when carrying out this procedure is to successfully choose places for dispersing drugs in order to block the main highways of their movement for slugs. It should be borne in mind that filing is effective when the slugs "graze" - that is, after sunset.

You can sprinkle powders on the ground, for example, finely crushed iron sulphate mixed with sand. Slugs die from contact with this mixture. Very caustic to slugs and soot. They do not like dry sawdust, they avoid places smeared with tar. Shrubs were protected from them by making a ring of cotton wool five cm wide at the base of the trunk and smearing it with tar or any sticky resin.

In addition, they will protect the soil from drying out and then serve as a fertilizer. And the skeletons of spruce and pine legs will serve as support for the berries, protecting them from contact with the ground. For dessert, grapefruit.

• American gardeners recommend a very original way of catching slugs using grapefruits, it is enough to take half the peel of a grapefruit, cut a small hole in it and set up this domed trap.
• Attracted by the smell, the gastropods will gather under the skin overnight, and in the morning it remains only to collect them and eliminate them by placing them in boiling water or in a concentrated solution of table salt. However, in our conditions it is easier to catch slugs in more accessible (and most importantly, available in any garden plot) traps.
• As the latter, ordinary trimmings of boards, pieces of slate or roofing felt, wet rags and burlap, linoleum, watermelon peels, cabbage leaves, etc. are quite suitable - slugs like to crawl into such shelters for a day. And you just need to spread out all these items in the evening in suitable places, and in the morning go and collect the mollusks hiding in the traps.

Among the chemicals for fighting slugs, the most famous is thunderstorm, metaldehyde. The tool is very effective, but quite expensive. It is a multi-colored granules, usually blue.

But voracious slugs destroy this "food" with pleasure. Do not pour granules in heaps - it is more efficient to lay them out at a distance of 10-15 cm from each other. This is quite enough for gastropods, and you will save a lot.