Slug Wars Trilogy pt. III - Eggshells vs Slugs

Tips, Tricks

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Do finely ground eggshells deter slugs? I ran a quick experiment to find out. One Yard Revolution is all about growing a lot of food on a little land using sustainable organic methods, while keeping costs and labor at a minimum. Emphasis is placed on improving soil quality with compost, mulch, and compost tea. No store-bought fertilizers, soil amendments, pesticides, compost activators, etc. are used. Channel Page: http://www.youtube.com/user/OneYardRevolution Join me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oneyardrevolution Featured Videos: Do Coffee Grounds Deter Slugs? http://youtu.be/fw0whAdhOG0 Does Diatomaceous Earth Deter Slugs? http://youtu.be/c7u40KTieeA

Comments

what did you do with the slugs after all these tests? I find the best slug control is a jar of salt and nightly patrols...

sean

Interesting but various experiments show this, coffee grinds and even beer traps can fail miserably in real life against these super slimers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQLjC2blS6Y

Great trial and fun to watch. Do you have a wood ash test? Would like to see the slugs with ashes. I have so many ashes and so few shells, and i know whatever was eating my peas didn't like the ashes one bit. :)

Would be great to do this test again with a bait on the egg-shell side to see if food were present, if that would be enough motivation to endure the eggshells.

Have you ever tested copper?

Have you tried Epson salts?

Patrick - some more anecdotal data for you on eggshells and the ongoing slug wars.

Historically, my worm bin has been badly infested with slugs. Recently, I started pulverizing all our egg shells and adding them to the worm bin. While not a coating of egg shells in the bin, the slug infestations have declined considerably. Perhaps the egg shells helped as a deterrent.

Secondly, I have been adding an eggshell "moat" around some favas I am growing this winter that were getting hit hard by the little buggers. The egg shells seem to be helping and giving the plants a chance to grow beyond the clutches of the slugs...

Thanks for the tip...
jv in california.

This is so helpful! Thank you!

Slugs being night creatures I would be interested in the tests conducted in darker condititons. I have a feeling the bright appearence (higher light reflection) of both DE and eggshells may play a role in the results... (negative phototropism) If they work in the same way in the dark, then yay. :)

thanks for the experiment. Very helpful, I will also add it to my site about slugs and snails. http://schneckenbesuch.de/

why don't you compare coffee vs DE vs eggshells to see which one slugs hate most?

Great video! Another reason to keep and repurpose your eggshells.

Slugs love our garden and snails, I think it is because we live near the south coast in the uk, it never frosts so they don't die. When we moved in we filled a whole bucket full and liberated them a few miles away in an open space but still we have The Return of the Gastropods. We feed them to our chooks but we will use the egg shells from our chickens now as we don't share with slugs or snails, anything else, but not them. Quote from yesterday from 8 yr farmer as carrying slug to chicken: 'Hello, slug, you are little and cute and I be a bit sorry bout this but we are feeding you to our chicken. You will like her, she has fevvers and is pretty little a little ostrich. She will like you a lot as well. That is why she be going to eat you up.' In fact, we also use small boys to decimate our slug/snail population. Also built a pond this year so smallest boy could have the fish he had asked for every birthday for the last 3 years and a frog has moved in, so hopefully he will help. The de stuff looks effective but anything that can hurt bees isn't worth it. Rather lose a lettuce than a bee. Loved these experiment and nerdily will repeat with the short farmers.

Cool.

An interesting experiment by +OneYardRevolution on how eggshells deter slugs. Must watch!

It may be my sense of humour but in my head I can hear another experiment where filled the box half with soil and half with salt. "after test 1 I couldn't find any of the slugs"

Well done!
Good, useful information!
Thanks for sharing!

I really enjoyed this slug wars trilogy! Was full of great info and it is very interesting to see the actusl result and if eggshells would like up to their name! Great work Patrick :)

Very interesting Patrick, thank you for doing this! I was already a believer....simply from experience. Now I can rest easy at night....another problem in my head "solved"! :) Great video man.