#slug pub

[upthewitchypunx]

So, you know how people put small dishes out with beer in them to attract slugs? Well, OSU had done research that shows watered down bread dough does the same thing because the slugs are attracted to the alcohol and carbon dioxide. I mentioned in my plant diagnostic this weekend that we use our cast off sourdough started, and it blew the minds of the retiree ladies from the suburbs.

Then I came up with a new million dollar plan: make slug traps you can fill with beer or watered down dough that looks like English pubs with goofy English pub like names like Slug & Lettuce and Salt & Trail or Slime & Suds and call them Slug Pubs. Alternatively, you could also make little bakeries. Why not collect the whole village!

Get that in a garden catalog and I think people who drink it up.

[askwhatsforlunch]

Slug Pubs (Slug Beer Traps)

Whilst the Coffee Grounds act as a repellent against the crop-munching slugs, Slug Pubs are a little less charitable: they’re a trap!

But if you’re to see your vegetable grow strong and healthy, they’re a necessary measure, as I’ve learned from the folks at River Cottage. Slugs hate coffee, but they love beer; so it’s quite easy to distract them from your beetroot leaves. All you have to do is dig a small hole near the crop you want to protect, push in a glass jar, and fill it halfway with (cheap, none of your craft brew, here!) beer. The gastropods will gather at the Slug Pubs, fall and drown into the beer -at least, they’ll die happy- and you’ll harvest beautiful beetroots, hopefully!

You do have to empty these traps right onto the compost heap every know and then, and it’s a bit of a loathsom task, as the smell is rather nasty. But think of all the vegetables that will end on your table, and carry on! Combine Slug Pubs and Coffee Grounds to deter these hungry gastropods all the more and better!