Anne Jaeger
Slugs; can’t live with ‘um, can’t live without ‘um. Wait! What am I saying? That’s just the point! We desperately want to live without them. But how? Claudia Groth (I call her the slug lady) is the most slug savvy person I’ve ever met. Groth is the product information manager for Whitney Farms natural garden products but she’s spent years studying the biology of these moving muscles (and yes, slugs are all muscle.) Groth studied slugs to find out how to get rid of them. And now is the time. Why? The little mobile turds are mating right now. So, Groth reminds us “For every one slug you stop now in the fall, you’re saving yourself from trying to kill up to 500 new babies in the spring.” Each slug can lay hundreds of eggs, so you can see how acting now beats the odds.
When it comes to out-sleuthing slugs, the question always becomes how. And here’s the Readers Digest version straight from the slug lady’s mouth: put the slug bait where the slugs hide during the day. How do we know that, you ask? Easy. Slugs like it cool and moist. So use your favorite kind of slug killer around ivy, ground covers and rocks NOT around your favorite plants. I know that runs counter-intuitive to what you’ve been told in the past, but if you understand slug biology you can understand just why it works. Groth says “When it’s dark they come out hungry. They’ve waited 8 hours for a meal. They smell the bait, they eat it first. Slugs are couch potatoes, they don’t like to walk too far” for dinner. Yes! Mission accomplished.
All the slug baits on the market have about the same success rate (please use products like “Sluggo” made with iron phosphate if you have pets) and each is made to lure or attract slugs. So if you put the bait around the plants, you’re attracting the slugs to the very plants you’re trying to protect. Now get this; slugs are smart. The gastropods can actually remember were they found something that tastes good. “They remember the smell of their favorite food and where to find it” according the Groth. So they’ll go back for those tender shoots of hosta or delphinium until the plants are stripped clean. Can you believe it? Slugs can remember for about two weeks! Groth’s research also shows slugs can “see” about six feet and they can “smell” about three feet. And that’s how they outsmart us. If you put out fresh poison every night, the slugs will avoid it. The slug remembers (and I’m paraphrasing here) “Ick, I ate that last night and I’m still hung over.” They’ll make a fairly fast exit in the opposite direction. This brings us to another fun fact from Claudia Groth “Slugs can do the 100 yard dash in 2 1/2 hours. A human can do it in 10 seconds.” (Researchers have never seen me run.)
Anyway, Groth says the answer to slugs is simple and saves money “Don’t bait every day. Bait in different locations or bait every ten days, near dark hiding places” that way the slug has forgotten your assassination attempts. So, the time is right and we’ve got our marching orders. Now, if we could just remember where we put that bottle of slug bait….?
