Slugs are especially active this summer in Maine, experts say.
Maine is home to four species of slugs and most of them want to eat your garden flowers and crops. Legless and boneless, these invertebrates leave trails of slime and destroyed vegetation in their wake.
“It’s probably worse this summer,” said Jim Dill, pest management specialist with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
Nothing is better for slugs than soggy, wet conditions, which has basically been the weather around much of the state this spring and summer.
“It’s been just so conducive to slug survival,” Dill said.
It’s made for a good slug season and a bad season for gardeners.
“They will eat any vegetation,” Dill said. “From strawberries to leaves to hostas to bedding plants — you name it, they are not fussy at all.”
The three most likely to go after your garden are the gray garden, spotted garden and tawny garden slugs. The fourth species is the black slug found on some of the state’s coastal islands where they live on whatever vegetation manages to grow there. Slugs found in Maine range from less than an inch long to seven inches in the case of the spotted garden slug.
Fortunately, there are ways to counter slugs attacking your garden, Dill said.
The first thing he recommends is keeping the area around a garden as clean and debris-free as possible.
“That means no boards laying around or piles of leaves or compost,” he said. “Sanitation is really huge [because] during the day slugs like to hide under boards or other cover so the sun does not do them in.”
Slugs don’t slither like snakes or walk like critters with legs. The entire underside of a slug is its foot. It moves around by producing a layer of mucus and then moves over the mucus — or slime — layer by contracting and expanding the muscles of that foot.
Some gardeners swear by sprinkling diatomaceous earth or other gritty substances like cinders, sawdust, gravel or sand around plants. Slugs will avoid crawling over any surface that is dry, dusty or scratchy as they have to use up too much mucus to do so and it could prove fatal.
A more hands-on approach is using a simple mixture of salt and water in a spray bottle, Dill said. The salt will draw all moisture from the inside of the slug, and it dies from dehydration.
While effective, it is a cruel death for the slug because they feel pain.
Less cruel and also quite effective is offering a nightcap of beer to any slugs near your garden.
Place pie plates filled with beer around your garden area in the evening. The yeast in the beer attracts slugs, which will crawl into the liquid and drown. In the morning, dispose of the beer and the pests.
“You can do the same thing with yeast and water,” Dill said. “That way you are not wasting good beer.”
A tuna can buried up to the top of the sides level to the ground also works. Fill in two-thirds with beer and then place a few small rocks around its perimeter and cover it with a small board.
“Slugs will be attracted to the beer,” Dill said. “And attracted to a nice spot under the boards to get out of the sun.”
Garden supply stores sell a variety of natural and chemical repellents. Just make sure to follow the instructions and safety warnings on the containers.