Beer for Your Slugs – Organic Gardening Tip
Although it seems like a waste of a good brew, beer for your slugs or beer traps do work to drown slugs in the garden. I’ve just written a new organic gardening article and I include five methods of organic slug control, of which beer lures and traps are just one. There’s saucers of beer to drown the critters, diotomaceous earth to shred them, oak leaves to repel them, gravel to repel and shred them, and copper tapes and spray to zap them.
Did I mention how much I loathe slugs?
Luckily there aren’t too many here in Virginia. One benefit to always using organic gardening methods is that there are plenty of birds and other creatures to patrol for insects in the garden I also don’t plant too many hosta, and those I do are in the front garden beds with a gravel path separating them from any moist, dark areas where slugs can hide. Deer also love to munch on hosta, so the few specimens I’ve planted are quite near the house.
I’d raise a beer to you, but I”m saving it for my slugs.
Jeanne Grunert is a certified Virginia Master Gardener and the author of several gardening books. Her garden articles, photographs, and interviews have been featured in The Herb Companion, Virginia Gardener, and Cultivate, the magazine of the National Farm Bureau. She is the founder of The Christian Herbalists group and a popular local lecturer on culinary herbs and herbs for health, raised bed gardening, and horticulture therapy.
