Slugs With Drinking Problems

For the most part, our vegetable garden has remained predator-free this summer. Although it is surrounded by two-foot-high chicken-wire-style fencing, I do not doubt that any deer, squirrel, or rabbit that wanted to munch our lettuce, tomatoes, squash, or berries, could certainly step or hop right over the barrier. But, so far, the garden has remained more or less undisturbed. Japanese beetles did attack one basil plant, but one carefully placed beetle trap 40 feet from the garden seems to have mitigated that problem.

There is one pest that, until recently, we couldn't seem to defend against: slugs. When our plants were young, slugs would eat the plants. Once they bore fruit or veggies, these slugs and snails would crawl onto the veggie, leave their slimy trails, and munch away. And there was really nothing we could do.

Until I left a mostly empty beer can in the garden. The next morning, it was covered with slugs. Could it be? Were these slimy gastropod molluscs actually alcoholic?

Answer: yes they are. I started leaving 2-inch-tall cups of old beer in the garden. Every morning, the cups would be full of slugs who had drunk themselves blind and then drowned! First, I used an old Coors Light that had been in the garage (hot then cold then hot then cold). They loved it. But I wondered, are all slugs lager-lovers? In the back of my refrigerator, there has been a Long Trail Blackbeary wheat beer for some months. I am not a big "fruity" beer drinker, so I decided to give it a go. Up I filled the little cups and then I came to check it out next morning. Sure enough, there are plenty of slugs with more discerning palates; all the cups were full.

Here is what I have surmised. Slugs are drunks. If you want to rid your garden of them, beer is the answer. If you feel sad for them, perhaps suggest some sort of program, but remember, you can't help them if they don't want to help themselves. However, do pass along that I don't want them eating food in the garden. Otherwise, I will be there -- with beer, that lethal toxin to which they can't say no.