Precious
little escaped the 2012 slug glut. They even ate the leaves of
potato and onion plants. That's an escalation of our annual war, and it triggers a new arms race.
This
is where the trials for 2013 have got to. For once, it does look very promising, for
anyone who's lost any sensitivity about killing the hungry beasts.
Humanely, almost benignly, I tell myself.
Essentially, these are beer traps.... but malt and hop free, which makes it very
much easier and cheaper to apply, even for a home-brewer. And I'm
still not resorting to chemical warfare.
The
trap itself evolved from early prototypes cut from Tetrapaks, but the Mark2 series uses pretty much any rigid
plastic container that's big enough for a slug to dive into, and that
keeps the rain out. Used spread tubs, milk cartons, ice cream tubs....
they need no more than a slug-sized door or two cut well up the side . And
(for any greenies worried about taking them out of the recycling
stream) they're reusable, so that's the right side of the waste
heirarchy.
Slugs
do like beer.... but what attracts them is the yeasty smell. So
an alcoholic concoction of water, yeast and sugar (beer without the
flavour) brings them just the same. Here's the recipe .
Sugar/yeast SLUG
BAIT
–
making 6 ltr (3 bottles)
3
x2 litre bottles
300g
sugar
½
oz (15g) yeast
Fill
a 2 litre bottle with water. Dissolve 300gm sugar in about
0.5litre of the water, boiled in a large (2ltr plus) pan.
Add the rest of the
water from the 2ltr bottle to the pan. Check it's warm, and crumble
in 15gm yeast (Sainsburys
- but not Tesco - in-store bakeries sell fresh yeast in 50gm or
200gm packs ).
When
the yeast spreads, stir it in and empty the pan equally between
3x2ltr bottles
Warm
another 4ltr water, and add to the three bottles. Cap loosely
to avoid excess pressure buildup. Tighten cap after two or three
days... and the bait is ready to pour into the traps.
The
slug-pub is half sunk in the soil to give easy access to the
alcoholic pool through the raised doorway, and the slugs waste no
time finding the way in. Here's the evidence
(not for the squeamish) of the morning after the night
before.
It's
in such poor taste, maybe the Sun would publish it. In the public
interest, of course.
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