Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Drunken Slug Party

EEEEWWWWWW!!! Slimy slugs invaded our flowerbed! For several weeks, it has been apparent that some creepy creature likes to snack on our vinca. Insecticidal soap helped a little, but even after we sprayed the flowers, they were still getting eaten. One evening John discovered some slugs on the flowers and upon closer inspection, he found slugs all over the flowerbed! Gross! John heard that beer attracted slugs, and that if shallow pans are filled with beer, slugs will get in the beer and drown. Or maybe it's the taste of beer that kills them....that wouldn't surprise me. :) We only needed a can of beer to try this out, and since we don't drink beer, I called my reliable alcohol source who shall remain unnamed and acquired a couple cans of Bud Light. We put out bowls of beer, and before the slugs had a chance to sniff it out, the cats did! I guess Sine and Tangent's mothers didn't have a chance to tell them about the evils of alcohol. I wasn't quick enough to catch a picture of the cats drinking the beer, but they were very intrigued by it. We ended up putting them in the garage, so we didn't have drunken cats roaming the neighborhood. They get into enough mischief already.
Back to the slugs---we left the beer out all night and the next morning, there really were slugs in the bottom of the bowl! I didn't have much confidence in the theory, but I was wrong; it works! The only problem was that many of the slugs took a sip of the beer and were able to crawl out of the bowl, so the next evening, John went out and checked the beer ever so often. He skimmed out and disposed of 25 or 30 slugs. YUCK! That'll teach the slugs to mess with our flowers!

1 comment:

Gina said...

My grandma does this all the time, and yes it really does work.