It's actually quite pretty (again, relatively speaking), but this slug is most likely an Arion rufus, a species that's native to Europe, but has been found in British Columbia and is apparently now also at large in Ontario. Hermaphroditic in nature, some slugs can even knock themselves up, so it only takes a single invader to build an army. Once the population is established, the slugs become (and I quote) the "slow moving lions of the vegetable world."
So how do you get rid of them? The story offers two possibilities. First, you can leave out beer for the slugs. They're attracted to fermented yeast, but they're a little dumb and they can't swim, so they'll end up crawling in and drowning themselves. The other option: Collect the slugs when they come out at night and "immerse them in boiling water." The article, unfortunately, does not mention whether you can then eat Arion rufus in a nice butter sauce.
10 cm Etobicoke Slug a Big, Slimy Mystery in the Toronto Star
(Thanks, Margaret Atwood. Yes, that Margaret Atwood.)
Image taken by Etobicoke, Canada resident Lisa Bendall. Used under fair use.
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The thing about beer for slugs is that you have little bowls of dead slugs in beer that you have to empty every morning. Either don't plant hostas because slugs love them, or do plant hostas because all the slugs will head over to the hostas where you can gleefully chop them up with your #8 Felcos.
This fellow might have slipped into my house a week or two ago in Toronto. One of my cats was particularly interested in our back door. I saw this thing at the bottom of the door. It's an old house so something flexible could easily slip in. It was a huge slug, more grey than the one in the picture, but bigger than I'd ever seen in these parts. I didn't boil it, though. I just picked it up and let it outside, where I assume it slowly created havoc in the backyard ecosystem. Or was eaten by one of the cats that hangs around our place.
If you can drown slugs in beer, why do you have to boil them when you use water?
You boil the water because that'll kill them faster. It's about being humane. It'll take a bit of time for them to drown in water. At least taking time while drowning in beer gives you more time to enjoy said beer.
That is an excellent question. I have no idea. Or, at least, no idea that doesn't revolve around the slugs being more edible post-boiling.
There is, however, a slug expert's email at the end of that article...hint hint.
"Invasive Slugs Slither Amok."?
When I find slugs (1/2" size) in my garden, I throw them on the walk and give them an instant execution by shoe, but I don't think I'd be wanting to stomp any 4" ones!
When I read that, I thought you meant we should be contacted Margaret Atwood with our slug-related question. Which I might still do.
They are also in the Portland, Oregon area. Taken on a recent trip.
Direct image link: http://prometheus.med.utah.edu/~bwjones/C1705165967/E20090623164626/Media/Slugs.jpg
Bryan
http://prometheus.med.utah.edu/~bwjones/
They're attracted to fermented yeast, but they're a little dumb and they can't swim, so they'll end up crawling in and drowning themselves.
Ooooh, Maggie, I hate it when you have my number!
But getting back to the slugs... I wonder what would happen if you threw them in your compost bin? Would the heat kill them? I've had a few population explosions of various bugs in my compost, though not any quite so big as these. :) They always eventually die away and their little carcasses end up feeding the mulch. Good stuff!
No way, Maggie. You blogged it, you... bought it? Anyway, I'm too chicken to e-mail a stranger about the ethics of gastropod genocide.
FYI, they are delicious. Treat them like Escargot: Butter, Garlic and Parsley or Cantonese-style: Black Bean and Garlic...etc.
I'm actually a big fan of slug/snail eating. Much like frying food, it's hard to drench something in butter and come away with it tasting bad.
My question here is whether this particular species is edible. Slugs strike me as one of those animals that might harbor a poisonous variety or two.
Well, wikipedia says that Arion Rufus is also called "the chocolate slug" so is likely delicious.
Here's some kids braver than men three times their size eating a different species. Some recipes and warnings on tongue numbness. Same thing that keeps me from tequila.
http://rickshawunschooling.blogspot.com/2007/10/wild-food-killing-our-own-meat.html
Looks like it is equipped with built-in webcam.
The problem with beer baiting to catch slugs is that they insist on fresh, non-diluted beer. So if it rains, you have to open a fresh bottle for the slimey guys.
A real chef told me that all snails and slugs are as edible as what they eat, hence the French tradition of starving them for a week and then feeding them for two weeks.
I haven't found a definitive source as to whether Arion rufus are edible, but I did find a list of SE Asian slugs with more than two-thirds of them listed as non-edible.
Don't eat them unless you find a real expert that will confirm that they can safely eaten.
I'll keep that in mind for when these buggers migrate into Minnesota.
Can you eat them after they've become beer flavored? Seems perfect once cooked till crispy!
Save your beer and get some chickens. They LOVE slugs, and will do very, very thorough patrols to make sure they get them all. Just keep an eye on them if you have ripening veg, so they don't eat that instead (or in addition) to the slugs.
Chickens generally won't touch them, you want Indian Runner Ducks.
Oh look. It's a homeless snail.
From The Jolly Tinker:
"No, they can’t tell if they’re floating in Guinness
Or sinking in Miller Lite.
They ain’t particular and they got no taste
And they’ll drown in any beer in sight
So come on down, let’s go out, and have a slug-drowning party tonight."
If you hate them because they're slugs, these tricks should work. I have also heard that broken eggshells can be used to keep them off of particular plants, but I've never tried.
If you're more concerned about them being invasive, though, don't leave out the beer or chickens. They'll be just as bad to the native slugs that belong in the ecosystem, if not the garden.
Welcome, my North American churms, to what gardeners in Europe have for thousands of years been battling against. Unfortunately, there IS no way of getting rid of slugs. I know, I've tried them all: from beer to eggshells to defensive planting to nematodes in the soil that infest them and eat them up.
My tactic for the last 5 years is this: plant DOUBLE what you want, the slugs (and the rabbits and the white fly, etc.) will take half. Live with it. Amen.
#26 is right, there is no clean way to combat them. The problem with beer traps is that while you drown the ones who were already in your garden, you draw in the slugs from your neighbor's gardens. You end up as bad or worse off.
Any more, my wife just snips them with garden shears.
Who the heck transports slugs to another continent? It's the revenge for those damn North American squirrels!
You have to have quite a deep pail to drown the bigger slugs. They can streeeetch out to 15cm or so, the big boys, and climb out of jars.
Also, out of the 6 species in my garden, only 2 ritualistically topped themselves in my beer traps. (btw - save money - dilute the beer 5 parts water to 1 part beer - same impact).
You must be prepared with a pair of chopsticks, and every 45 minutes proceed around the delicate parts of your garden, picking up slugs and introducing them to the beer well.
Hedgehog?
Just use some good old metaldehyde around vulnerable seedlings, or put netting around vulnerable plants like lettuce or cabbage.
You'll never kill enough of them with beer traps to have an effect.
Boiling water seems a bit cruel. Just stick them in a bucket of cold water and they'll drown. I think being boiled alive is a bit less humane (and think of the wasted electricity that could be used on a cup of refreshing tea).
Thirty posts and not one of them mentions salting the suckers? As a kid salting those big, gooey 4"ers was one of the happiest moments of my childhood, and I had a pretty good childhood by most measures. I left my pair of duck boots (washington flip flops) on the porch overnight and squished a slug right in my boot using my bare foot. Ugh.
Here's a comment based on actual experience with these nasty buggers:
They're a real clusterf*ck of a problem here in southern Swede, on the level of problems with slippery bicycle ways due to masses of overrun slimers.
My parents have it so bad that my mom goes out every night from spring to first frost an beheads all of the little turd lookalikes she can find. And that's usually between two- to six hundred of them, per night, at least 150 nights out of the year. See the problem? Funny part? They're completely vegetarian except for that they eat each other, so the next morning/day/evening you can get some extra kills from the ones munching on their dead buddies.
My point is that any and all methods of dispatching except for the behead/leave to dry-method ends up causing a logistics problem with a disgusting mass of slimy carcasses. Salt is not a good option unless you are immensely rich and don't care if you kill every last living thing in your garden.
TABBYCAT
I like most garedeners and allotment holders ( I have two plots) suffer from slugs and snails in this damp weather and in fact now that the climate has changed we have the slug and snail problem all year round, recently a fellow gardener recommended a new device to control slugs and snails called the slugbell he has used it and found it to be brilliant at controling them I have just ordered 3 of them ,they state on there web page www.slugbell.com that they use both organic or normal pellets and that the small amount of pellets needed will last up to three months.!!! as they don’t desolve in the soil and they are pet safe Brilliant for pet owners well, I will let you know in my next blog how I get on as i will try anything to keep my garden and allotment looking how it should.
If this species of slug is edible, they still may have toxic mushrooms in their digestive tract. The way to handle that is to confine them without food for three days, then let their last meal be leaves of a savory spice like sage.
Personally, I just throw slugs to my chickens.
Hi margrete,I like most garedeners suffer from slugs and snails in this damp weather and in fact now that the climate has changed we have the slug and snail problem all year round, recently a fellow gardener recommended a new device to control slugs and snails called the slugbell he has used it and found it to be brilliant at controling them I have just ordered 3 of them ,they state on there web page www.slugbell.com that they use both organic or normal pellets and that the small amount of pellets needed will last up to three months.!!! as they don’t desolve in the soil and they are pet safe Brilliant for pet owners well, I will let you know in my next blog how I get on as i will try anything to keep my garden and allotment looking how it should.
I've found that slugs in general (in Massachusetts, at least) won't voluntarily drown in water; after you put them in they slither out. Beer however, even a pie pan's depth, they enter of their own free will and enjoy so much they choose to stay submerged. (If a drunk slug can be said to "choose".)
While it seems like a lot of work, I defeated our slugs by carefully picking them off and crushing them every morning when my plants were young. I also laid cardboard around the plants. It helps you see the slugs on the ground and also, you can turn the pieces over and the slugs underneath are easy pickings. This method would only work for a kitchen size garden (I was caring for 12 plants) but I probably destroyed most of the neighborhood slug population. One day, when I found hundreds under a log, I loaded them into a jar and released them a few miles away. I just didn't have the heart to kill so many at once. If you don't want to crush them, you can put them in a jar and pop it in freezer until frozen completely solid (cold won't kill them). Then dump in the trash.
Ducks & geese love slugs (and snails and worms and catepillars). So either invite a few waterfowl into your backyard or take a bag full of live or freshly drowned slugs to the park and feed the ducks & geese there.
I especialy enjoy watching the ducks play keep-away with eachother when they realize that this is a special treat. Besides, slugs and snails are healthier treats for them than bread or popcorn. And there are fewer slimey things in my garden.