Beer Traps

Considering their small size and slow speed, slugs and snails can do amazingly large amounts of damage in just one night.  

Freshly planted vegetable and flower seedlings are no match for their voracious appetites and even established plants can have entire leaves reduced to mush, ruining their appearance and setting your temper off in a ‘five alarm’ kind of way. It’s almost embarrassing to find that something half the size of your finger can make you the kind of mad that is usually associated with flashing lights and an arrest record.  

There are many products on the market to help control slugs and snails. There are chemical products, natural products and organic products in all shapes and sizes. You can buy them in powder form, granular form and spray form. There are systemic products that have a residual effect offering long term control and there are products that are natural and organic but require regular applications throughout the season.  

I have spoken before about using a systemic product called ‘Tree and Shrub Drench’ and in my case I use this product almost exclusively to control biting/chewing/sucking pests in my garden. My schedule is the major factor in my decision but before holding the position I do now I used beer traps often to control slugs and snails in my yard.  

Beer traps are not new; in fact they have been around for many years. More than ten years ago I was introduced to beer traps by a customer who was then in her 60’s and she had been using them herself for most of her 40 year gardening career. Over the last eight years or so, organic and sustainable gardening have been spotlighted, and people are becoming more interested than ever in using gardening techniques that are better for us, our plants and our environment.  

Beer traps are easy to make and inexpensive to maintain. For the beer lovers out there I can assure you that the cheapest and nastiest beers will still do the job, and you can keep your flashy beer in your fridge just for you, and your football mates if you’re the generous kind. 

 

Follow these simple steps and you can have a wonderfully successful and inexpensive control for slugs and snails. 

1.    Purchase the cheapest beer you can find. Of course, if you are a gourmet through and through you may also purchase high end beer so that your slugs and snails leave this earthly realm in a top shelf stupor.  

2.    Using Mason/Ball jar lids or shallow dishes of any kind, place them around the plants that are already showing damage or those you wish to protect from damage. 

3.    Set the lids/dishes into the ground so that the edges are slightly below the natural ground level.  

4.    Fill each lid/dish with beer so that the liquid level is just below the rim. 

5.    These traps should be set just before dark, or if your house/landscape lighting allows, just after dark. 

6.    In the morning you can throw the dead slugs/snails into the trash can, rinse the lids and then wait until the evening to set them out again.

 

It is worth noting that often I found that the damage to my plants was lessening but I was not finding any slugs or snails in my traps. I attributed this to early morning birds that picked off the slugs and snails hours before any sane person was out of bed.  

If you are not finding any slugs or snails and the damage is continuing, then try moving your traps slightly as a small move of 3-5” can make all the difference. If you already have damage  then try to find the silvery trails they leave behind and place the traps along the trails as close to the plants as possible.  

Finally, if there are any bird lovers out there who are upset that I am feeding beer drugged slugs and snails to wild birds I apologize, however I look at this as a “two birds, one stone” scenario – drunk birds sleep later and swoop less. 

Pun intended.