Dill speaks with BDN about how to protect garden from slugs
The Bangor Daily News included information from Jim Dill, pest management specialist at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, in the article, “How you can protect your garden from slugs.” Slugs can do a lot of damage to a garden by chewing on leaves and stems, as well as leaving behind trails of slime, which can be difficult to remove from crops, the BDN reported. “Slug slime, once it dries, is pretty hard to get off,” according to Dill, who recommends creating a slug barrier with two perpendicular copper wires, especially around raised bed gardens. The article also stated that slugs avoid crawling over anything that’s dry or scratchy, such as diatomaceous earth, cinders, coarse sawdust, gravel or sand, and an hour spent hand-picking and destroying slugs can noticeably reduce the population, according to UMaine Extension.