Comments on: Beverage preference among the common garden slug (Arion distinctus)

By: Horst

Horst — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 10:14:14 +0000

Water doesn’t work because, as strange as it sounds, slugs can swim. The reason why they drown in beer because they get drunk.

You might, however, try to build slug traps that address the slugs’ biggest fear, as revealed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0uxqG82f-g

@TH: Schwechater happens to be one of my favourite beers. How it got its bad reputation is completely beyond me. It’s one of the few Austrian beers that hasn’t gone all sweetish and watery yet.

By: mig

mig — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 06:51:00 +0000

good luck with your slugs, carmen. i considered water, but figured it wouldn’t work. it rained heavily recently and my receptacles filled up with water, and no slugs drowned, so i’m guessing my assumption was correct. a more extensive study is planned for next year, when i can set up my garden with a test in mind. depending on the results of my more extensive study, i am considering planting some vulnerable crops (lettuce, peas, peppers) inside a beer moat.

By: Carmen

Carmen — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:17:45 +0000

My boyfriend and I are planting a vegetable garden in our small backyard. We we excited that we wouldn’t have to deal with deer or the like as we are in downtown Savannah, GA with a high fence. However, we went out to the garden at about 3am today to find our seedlings covered in slugs. So, of course, I am filtering through the internet posts about slug control and found your test.

I have to say, I love this post. Great idea, great presentation. My question for you is, shouldn’t your “control” beverage/liquid for this test have been water? Just a thought.

By: mig

mig — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:53:41 +0000

I got the 149 one night, then maybe a dozen after that over a couple nights and thought i’d won. Then i planted new lettuce, and it was all gone the next day. And I put out another saucer and got a couple dozen more slugs. Big ones. You have to keep at it, I guess. I haven’t tried spreading wood ash yet, that’s supposed to help too. Next year i might try planting lettuce off the ground in racks made from rain gutter sections, but my wife thinks that would look trashy…

By: JGH

JGH — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:24:19 +0000

I have been trying to decipher the etiology of my stripped down , munched up lettuce for two weeks. I have sneaked out at all times of day to get a glimpse, could not find anything on the leaves, flying crawling or anything. After reading this I went back out and dug around in the dirt at the base of my plants and there found a constellation of slugs of every shape, color and kind. My beer saucers are in position! thank you for this tip. I am confident I can beat the 149 slugs in one night. my garden is crawling with them! where do they come from anyway? I suspect there is a queen slug lurking and propagating somewhere near by. STay tuned

By: Meagan

Meagan — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:24:20 +0000

Plants are phobic of me. So phobic, in fact, that they tend to keel over and die in my presence. I think growing lettuce is probably out. I’m having limited success with house plants. I bought 6 of them last month around mother’s day and 4 of them are still alive.

By: Name Required, Esq.

Name Required, Esq. — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:59:58 +0000

Can we assume slugs don’t like siddling (?) up to the bar next to anyone? At any rate, now I’m scared to death I might accidentally drink some Red Bull here in the land of Heineken. Sad, would have expected a speedball effect, as perhaps did the slugs. Maybe one of them will be discovered in 47 million years, and shed some light on our human origins.

By: mig

mig — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:15:20 +0000

well, yes, trish, that’s why a study incorporating time-lapse night-vision photography would be such an important follow-up, to see if slugs really jump out of red bull saucers.

meagan: i’ve heard the salt-slug thing, but i really wouldn’t recommend salting your garden, unless you’re growing pretzels. i’m looking forward to trying the wood ash method suggested by merisi, too. good for your garden, and if it keeps slugs out, that’d be great.

i’m from your neck of the woods, and i remember zillions of slugs. plant lettuce and they will come.

By: Meagan

Meagan — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:26:13 +0000

Maybe this is just the northwesterner talking, but holy crap that’s a lot of slugs in one evening! I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than three or four in the same place at the same time. Still, I find myself riveted by your study, and I plan to share your findings with a gardener friend of mine who has a burning hatred of slugs. He’s been using rather barbaric salt methods I think, and I doubt he has considered drowning them in beer.

By: Trish

Trish — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:01:16 +0000

And just for the record, has a slug ever jumped out of or into anything. I mean, what does that look like? A jumping slug?

By: Trish

Trish — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:58:40 +0000

“I was that snail in the saucer.”

By: mig

mig — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:51:11 +0000

thx for the wood ash tip. will burn something when i get home.

By: Merisi

Merisi — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:39:16 +0000

Wait until the snails get the message that “Schwechater” airport and “Schwechater” beer are not the same! ;-)

Have you ever tried to sprinkle wood ash? Snails and slugs find it too irritating to crawl over it. Good fertilizer too.

By: mig

mig — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:38:11 +0000

Am doing a follow-up comparison test, two saucers, both in the lettuce patch, one with Schwechater (the most popular of Saturday’s test) and one with original Czech Budweiser. Will present the results tomorrow. Should be good, when I went out to set it up this evening there was already a big slug waiting in the empty saucer.

By: Muireann Noonan

Muireann Noonan — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:12:36 +0000

That was fascinating which in itself is fascinating. I think it goes to prove that any topic can be made interesting by clever presentation. You go girl.