Slimy slugs and super-sized snails, all loving beer.

If you garden, you're probably very familiar with the infamous slug. The slimy, slender, shell-less mollusk that turns the prize tomato you've been waiting for all week into a slimy pile of goo in the morning, usually after an all-night feast. Or destroys your precious lettuce, like this picture below:

   Slugs are closely related to snails. Though they don't have a shell on the outside of their body like snails, they have a very small shell in the middle-back area of their body under the skin (the "shield" of the slug). Like snails, both groups feed on fruits, vegetables, and other matter with a mouth that "rasps" off little bits of food. Its kind of like a sander, scraping off layers into their mouth with a rough tongue.

Snail rasping mouth parts

 
One of the largest species of slugs you can find around here in Oklahoma is Limax maximus, the leopard slug or great gray slug. This fairly big and spotted slug was introduced into the United States in the late 1800's from its native range in England and Europe. It also can be found munching on garden lettuce, and can be found frequenting lawns. They can get up to 10-20cms!

Great Gray or Leopard Slug

     However, in terms of large slugs, nothing beats the Banana slugs of the Northwestern United States. These super-sized and colorful slugs of the genus Ariolimax can reach up to 25cms long. They are so ubiquitous and colorful that the Banana slugs were used as mascots for the University of California Santa Cruz!

    Most of these native and non-native slugs are at most a nuisance to gardeners. They can do a lot of damage to your garden if left unattended, but they stick mostly to plants. However, there is one recently introduced snail to Florida that not only eats more than plants, it is HUGE. This is the re-introduced Giant African Land Snail.

    The Giant African Land Snail not only can reach an amazing 8inches in length, but they can eat stucco on walls, completely defoliate bushes and plants, and transmit meningitis (a nasty disease). It initially was introduced in Florida in 1966 by a boy that snuck it into Florida from Hawaii as a possible pet, but was then released by his grandmother into the yard. It took an estimated 1 million dollars and 10 years to get that outbreak of snails contained. So, when the snail reappeared last year, it hit the news waves of how bad this could be:
      CBS news
      Washington Post
      Miami Herald
  Compared to the Giant African Land Snail, our native and not-native Great Gray slugs look like wimps.
   So how can we stop these super-sized or not-so-super sized mollusks? Well, for Florida there are a bunch of guidelines about how to deal with the snails since they can transmit that disease. However, for our Oklahoma slugs and snails there is a traditional remedy that still stands true for controlling their populations: BEER.

    For some reason slugs and snails love beer, and it has been a method used by most gardeners to control their slugs. They can't resist it. So, if you place a pan or lid of a jar filled with beer out in your garden at night, the next morning you'll find lots of drunk, immobilized slugs to remove. This method hasn't been tried (as far as I know) for the Giant African Land Snails, but it can at least work for you here in Oklahoma if you want an eco-friendly way to protect your garden from our native slimy slugs, big or small.
    So as you drink a beer this Friday night toast to our slimy cohort, and save them a sip!