Keeping the Slugs at Bay in Your Urban Garden
I live in Portland, Oregon, and it is a lovely city. Very lush, with verdant landscapes and plenty of slugs to eat their way through it.
I can honestly say that I have never seen so many slugs before, in such abundance and especially size. One night, under the light of my headlamp, I swear I saw a five inch long slug. It was disgusting, but as I cannot kill the little guys, I had no idea what to do, or if I had to do anything at all.
Well, come to find out I did indeed have to do something. The slugs, my friendly, slimy neighbors, were going to town on some foxglove in my garden. I moved the foxglove, and mulched with stones. Too extreme, but effective. I have plenty of Foxglove around the backyard, and the slug issue is not yard-wide. However, I started noticing the same tell-tale slugs bite marks on my strawberries. It was a new patch that I had planted this past spring, and as the problem was earlier this season, I had to take some action. Ain’t no slug gettin’ my berries before they are even berries!
So, I consulted an organic gardening book. And slugs hate caffeine in the form of coffee grounds. I collected a weeks worth (maybe two) of grounds, and I set to work. I used a big spoon and laid out a two to three inch wide band of coffee grounds around the perimeter of my strawberry patch.
The effects were immediately noticeable. It took about two weeks before I would say the slugs skipped dining on my berries (and peas, as I tried as well).
America!
slugs, Portland, Oregon, garden, urban, coffee grounds, organic gardening, strawberries, peas
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