🐌 Slug

How to identify

You'll rarely see them by day — check after dark with a flashlight for soft, slimy, shell-less mollusks gliding along on a muscular foot. The calling card is unmistakable: silvery dried slime trails across leaves, soil, and pots.

Damage signs

Slugs rasp irregular holes with smooth edges in leaves, devour seedlings down to nubs overnight, and hollow out strawberries and low-hanging fruit. One damp night can erase a whole row of fresh transplants.

Plants it attacks

Lettuce, seedlings, cabbage, beans, strawberries, hostas, herbs

Non-chemical controls

• Sink beer traps: bury cups so the rim sits at soil level and fill halfway with cheap beer — slugs crawl in for a drink and don't crawl out.
• Lay boards or damp newspaper near beds; slugs hide underneath by day, and you flip the boards each morning for an easy harvest into soapy water.
• Hunt with a flashlight two hours after dark, when slugs are at peak activity — handpicking at night is the single most effective control.
• Ring vulnerable plants with food-grade diatomaceous earth; the sharp particles abrade their soft bodies, but reapply after rain.
• Water in the morning instead of evening so the garden surface dries by nightfall — slugs need damp darkness to travel.
• Wrap raised beds and pots with copper tape; the metal gives slugs a mild electric tingle they refuse to cross.