Battling Slugs

It's not a very exciting picture but what it represents is very exciting, at least for us. I've posted about our problems with slugs in the past and about a solution we tried with some success last year. This year we're trying coffee instead. Apparently slugs don't like coffee so we've been saving our used grinds and spreading them around the dahlias. Not all the dahlias are up yet but the ones that are show no signs of slugs at all. Since our dahlia selection has dropped from 20+ to 7, this is great news!

Slug Solution that Works

In follow up to my previous post about Slugs:
I am happy to report that Kelly and I have been using the ammonia solution with success.  The formula is:  7 parts water to 1 part ammonia.  I read about this in a gardening magazine at some point.

Kelly is spraying early morning; I'm spraying less regularly in the evening.  The solution melts slugs on contact - I'll refrain from posting a picture of this!  It also seems to be a good deterrent.  I can see that if we start early next year, we'll be able to keep the population down right from the start.  I'm hoping it'll make a difference with other bugs as well.

Slugs, Slime and Solutions

This year the slugs are everywhere in our garden.  I'm not seeing so many of the big fat orange ones, but hundreds of little small grey ones that love dahlia.  There are lots of things in my garden that eat leaves and flowers but slugs leave behind a distinctive silvery trail of slime that shimmers in the early morning sun.  This is the first year we've had problems with slugs and dahlia - maybe because we have so many dahlia this year.  And we've discovered that Stoke's aster is their all-time favourite dish on our garden.

The best thing I've used is Corry's Slug & Snail Death.  My sister left me an opened box when she moved to Bermuda.  When I circled the emerging dahlia with it, they actually grew instead of being chewed to nubs. Unfortunately I ran out and can't find any in the stores (yet).

I've tried other slug baits and they don't seem to do much and leave a mess in your garden. I even tried sprinkling slugs with salt. That works but assumes you can find every slug in your garden! My husband's solution is to pick them off using a little twig. It solves the immediate problem but is just plain, well, yucky.

Here are 3 different solutions that I've read about and plan to try:

1. ashes
2. crushed egg shells
3. diluted ammonia (1 part ammonia with 7 parts water)

Perhaps some of these will deter the snails and caterpillars too.