What’s the best way to kill slugs organically? Well, I’m glad you asked.

There’s more than one way to kill slugs in the garden… instead of giving you one cure-all, today I’ll give you three easy ways to slaughter the slimy saboteurs.

This post was inspired last week by JTF, who asked: “Please tell me how you stop slugs eating through your crops! l have a million slugs, you would think l was trying to grow them! Any help appreciated.”

A few years back we had a major slug infestation in our gardens and I had to act fast. Now if slugs attack, I’m ready.

Here are three ways to catch and kill slugs that actually work.

How to Kill Slugs Method#1: Scrap Lumber

One simple method to find slugs is to wet some pieces of scrap lumber, then lay them on the ground in the evening.

The next morning, the slugs will often be underneath them, hiding from the sun.

Actually killing them now requires you to embrace your hatred.

You can throw slugs into a bowl of sudsy water, put salt on them, or just go full psycho and chop them into pieces with a knife or scissors.

How to Kill Slugs Method #2: Cheap Beer

If the slugs in your garden are really out of control, go out and get yourself a few cans of cheap beer.

Now, drink them all. After a few minutes, you will no longer care about the slug infestation.

Just kidding. The beer is for the slugs, not you.

Get yourself some little bowls and put them here and there around the garden in the evening. Pour an inch or so of beer in the bottom of each one. The next morning, each bowl should have dead slugs in it.

See, slugs are nature’s alcoholics. They have very sensitive senses of smell and will crawl to wherever there is beer and literally drink themselves to death.

This method was quite effective in our garden. But we also paired it with slug-killing method #3 for a complete beatdown.

How to Kill Slugs Method #3: Hand-Pickin’

Slugs are mostly nocturnal. They like the cool, moist evenings.

When the slugs really started destroying our pea plot a few years ago, my wife and went out with flashlights a little after dark and started slug hunting.

Sure enough, we found dozens.

The first night’s hunt I brought a little dish of salt with me and we tossed them in there to bubble away into slimy, desiccated corpses… but then we found it was just easier to take scissors in hand and nip the slugs in half with the blades.

Brutal revenge.

Final Thoughts

A few last points.

If you have mulch in your garden, slugs love that. They don’t like bare ground as much. Slugs and their cousin the snail like lots of material they can hide in. Bare ground doesn’t provide that. Raised beds with wood or stone borders also gives them a place to hide. That’s one reason to just build your beds from mounded soil, like so:

It’s also cheaper than buying boards or blocks.

Also, staying on top of slug issues will keep you from losing as many plants. Look for shiny trails around the garden and obviously gnawed areas and don’t wait to get started! Hunt around and get killing before they eat up your hard work.

If you have ducks, they love to eat slugs. Letting them wander the garden now and again might work, though I don’t have enough faith in ducks to do so. Better to just pick off slugs and throw them to the ducks.

You can also throw the bowls of beer and slugs into your compost pile. Slugs will compost just fine, as does beer.

Finally, I’ve got more on organic pest control and lots of helpful info on growing your own food in my book Grow or Die: The Good Guide to Survival Gardening – I think you’ll dig it.

Enjoy this post? Pin it to Pinterest with this slimy graphic!

 

*Featured image via Andy Rogers. Creative commons license. Check out his other photos here.