Slug infestation in worm box

be the best place for wormy information. Thanks again.

Place a few pans of dark beer in there. That will take care of the slugs. ;-)

It really does work!

K.

On Wed, 04 Aug 2004 01:42:36 -0500 in , Katra graced the world with this thought:

all that ever happens when I try this is I come out in the morning and find cigarette butts and half eaten nachos.

Party slugs eh? ;-D

Seriously, it's helped a lot in the one garden where the slugs were eating my swiss chard. Nary any slug damage now and we find dozens of drowned slugs in the beer pans. :-)

K.

You must have really LARGE slugs.

LOL

Cindy

Nah.

My policy is, if it's a native slug (which around here means it's yellow, green, or yellow with black spots), I leave it in the compost box. If it's an evil exotic (black, brown, or brown with black spots), it is destroyed. Since I have a difficulties with killing anything, I put the slugs I want to kill in a plastic bag and then put it in the freezer, so they can peacefully be frozen to death. My husband thinks that since slugs barely have two neurons to rub together, this is unnecessary. I will leave the ethics of slug execution up to you (CYLOR if necessary).

Anyway, having a few slugs in the worm bin doesn't seem to cause much harm. Then again, I have a pretty laisez-faire attitude about the worm bin. I put the kitchen scraps, autumn leaves and weeds (before they go to seed) in, and pull out compost twice a year. Stir occasionally. Other people seem to have these very highly managed verimcomposting systems, where they monitor the ph and and carbon/nitrogen content and turn on a semi-weekly schedule. Maybe they get more finished compost as a result. I'm happy with what I get, though, as it is.

rec.gardens.ecosystems was developed to specifically deal with issues of organic gardening, including vermicomposting, but the newsgroup appears to be basically unused.