Let's learn a bit about these critters and then I will give you some suggestions as to how to get rid of them.

Slugs are hermaphrodites: they all have male and female reproductive systems. They can mate with themselves!! Yuck! They can stretch to 20 times their normal length to squeeze through openings to get at food. Slug eggs are in the soil just about everywhere. It takes moisture to allow them to hatch. They can be in the ground for years and hatch when conditions are right. The eggs are oval shaped white colored eggs in moist soil areas, under rocks and boards. Eggs are laid in clusters of two dozen eggs each. Adults can bury themselves over winter in the soil and can live for years. There are at least 40 varieties of slugs.

Now, some of the ways to get rid of these creatures are as follows:

• Keep all decaying matter cleaned out of your garden beds. Clear all dead leaves from the garden.
• Cultivation of the soil will help kill hibernating slugs and eggs.
• Remove slugs and snails by hand. If you are too finicky, use chopsticks. If you get the slime on your fingers or hands pour a little cheap white vinegar on your hands and wash
  it off with lukewarm water.
• Squish or drown the slugs in ajar of soapy water.
• Install barriers of 2-inch or wider copper stripping around plants and flower beds. Do
  this only after you have removed all slugs around the plants.
• Set yeast traps in troublesome beds. Sink a shallow jar so the top is flush with the ground. Fill the trap with beer, regular or nonalcoholic to 1/2 inch from the top and wait for the slugs to fall in and drown. A recent survey on what kind of beer slugs like best tells us they prefer Budweiser, Bud light, Coors light, Michelob, Old Milwaukee. Pretty good taste buds huh?
• For those who don't want to waste beer, try adding 1/2 tsp. baking yeast and 1 tbsp. sugar to the water in each trap.
• Minimize the moist and cool spots in your garden. Water lawns and gardens in the morning. These guys are nocturnal and can slither better on wet grass and soil.
  Some people use salt, but this is cruel; sure it's fun watching them bubble into nothing, but crushing them is quicker and more humane.
• Use the lint from your dryer as a barrier around your seedlings and plants.
• Cedar, oak bark chips or gravel chips will irritate and dehydrates them.
• Try a barrier line of powdered ginger.
• Use wood ashes as a barrier, but try not to let the plant come into contact with the ashes.
• Shingles or sandpaper after you get rid of the slugs in the area. Lay a barrier of these around the area to keep slugs out.
• Spread well crushed eggshells around the plants.
• Sprinkle a line of lime around the plants.
• Talcum powder or diatomaceous earth work as barriers too. The diatomaceous earth will kill earthworms though and you do not want to breath it.
• Copper strips or pennies around the plant works too. The metal ions in copper repel slugs.
• A mulch made of stems and leaves of strong smelling herbs like wormwood, mints,
  tansy, lemon balm helps keep them out.
• Hair and fur can be used as a barrier to entangle slugs.
• Oak leaves, lettuce and cabbages can deter slugs, so does seaweed if you have access to some. Cook the cabbage leaves until soft, drizzle some butter or lard over them. Place them in slug prone areas. Within several hours the leaves will be swarming with slugs and you can destroy them.
• Coffee grounds, Epsom salts, builders' sand, nut shells and cocoa hulls may also be tried.
• Grape juice can be used in the same way as beer traps. Slugs really love grape juice.
• Some plants slugs generally steer clear of: Artemisias, daylilies, Fresia, Lemon balm,
  Red cabbage, alyssum, Azaleas, Daffodils, Grapes, Mint, Lungwort, Rosemary, Red oak
  leaf lettuce, Basil, Evergreens, Corn, Fennel, Cosmos, Chard, Foxglove, Hibiscus, Ivy Swedish in particular, parsley, sages, tansy, pumpkin, sunflowers, chicory and endive.
• Some predators of slugs include: ground beetles, particularly carabid beetles, turtles, toads, frogs, lizards, rove beetles, salamanders, lightening bug larvae, garter snakes, and especially most birds. The appeal factor to all these creatures is the fact that slugs are pure protein. Yummy.

Now, I hope some of these suggestions will help you all in your battle with the slime army. Keep them away from your Hostas and Lilies and seedlings and you may have a great garden; if you still have the energy left after battling these ugly little critters. Have a great growing season.

- Nana