Slugs have thousands of teeth. The tooth-packed radula, like a circular drill bit, literally rasp off the slug’s food so it can easily be swallowed and digested.
Slugs are a very efficient eater of your tender plants due to the teeth they have, so much so that a few of these molluscs can create disasters in your garden overnight.
While slugs do not pinch or bite humans, they can inflict some serious pain to anyone trying to successfully grow vegetables or other crops.
Your Monthering: If you are fed up with them coming to your garden, follow me to learn all you need to know about the chewing and biting habits of common slugs and the best organic methods of evicting them from your garden.
A Quick Look at the Inside of a Slugs Mouth
For many, thinking about how slugs eat goes no further than seeing some nibbled lettuce leaves or vanished seedlings.
Even with a soft gelatinous body, slugs have a jaw and thousands of teeth.
Curious scientists have managed to take photographs of slug mouths in action.
Generally, slugs do most of their eating with a flexible band called a radula that has rows of thousands of tiny teeth. The term “radula” is Latin for “little scraper”.
Additionally, the radula is an anatomical feature common to all gastropods, and like a tongue, can direct food from the front to the back of the mouth.
The radula works like a rasp, scraping off and breaking the food into small pieces for easy digestion.
The Natural History Museum has some incredible, very detailed images from electron micrographs of rows and rows of fang-like slug teeth!
The Unique Structure of a Slugs Mouth Means That It Is Adapted to Feed on Anything and Everything
Slugs are broadly omnivores, with the generalist species functioning well as detritivores; making a great contribution to recycling nutrients from decaying matter.
While they mostly consume plant materials, slugs also eat worms, dung, fungus and even other slugs!
The unique radula of the slug allows slugs to graze and scrape food off of many surfaces as well as take a hearty chunk out of food like this banana slug in action eating mushrooms.
Slugs Can Wreak Havoc in Your Garden!
Slugs are eating machines and can consume up to 40 times their body weight in a single day.
Beating the odds, these flexible creatures can make a fast getaway by extending their body length (even with a full belly) up to 20 times when trying to slip through narrow gaps.
According to the BBC, in an average UK garden, the number of slugs is estimated to be over 20,000.
With so many slugs, it is easy to see how they can wreak havoc on the new tender growth that is found in your raised beds.
Get your game face on: Dealing with slug activity takes a concentrated and sustained effort, declaring war on many fronts to protect your crops.
Strategies for Keeping Slugs from Biting Your Plants, Fruit and Veg
With their large numbers and their stealth, slugs are nearly impossible to eliminate completely.
However, by using several good organic methods, they can be managed successfully.
Using organic slug control means that you do not have to resort to insecticides that can wipe out beneficial species in your garden.
Here are some basic organic gardening methods for controlling them.
Handpick Slugs Whenever and Wherever You See Them
You can also go out to your garden or allotment in the evening to find slugs waking up for their evening feast.
Just pick them up and drop them in a bucket of soapy water.
Beer Traps Will Leave Your Garden Slugs Sozzled
Sink a container part-filled with beer into your raised bed.
The smell of the beer will lure the slugs which then fall into the container and can not escape the sogginess.
Go and check your beer trap in the morning and dispose of the very drunk molluscs!
Copper Can Deliver a Deterrent Shock to Slugs
Slugs and snails will not want to cross barriers made from copper as it carries a charge that causes them discomfort.
However, determined slugs may well just carry straight on and pass the barrier to access your plants.
Diatomaceous Earth Is an Effective Slug Deterrent
When this powdery rock is used, it becomes an undesirable abrasive for snails and slugs, and may even kill them if they cross over it.
So sprinkle this around your plants generously, and they won’t cross the barrier.
Coffee Grounds Are a Cheap and Simple Slug Deterrent That Also Nourishes Your Plants
Coffee grounds spread on your edges are another kind of abrasive obstacle that slugs will not want to crawl over.
Coffee grounds are not only coarse, but any caffeine they absorb can kill the slugs.
Coffee grounds will break down, leaving no evidence and increase your soil nutrition!
Nematode Parasites That Are Added to the Soil Are a Targeted Solution
Nematode worms are parasites that it infects and kills slugs.
These worms are sold as a dessicated preparation that is put into water and then mixed in to the soil.
When slugs go into a treated area and they will become infected and die.
Get Your Backyard Ducks and Chickens to Gobble Them Up
Chickens and ducks are masters of finding and eating slugs.
Let them free range and search for slugs in the daytime when they are lurking in places like under stones, logs or in the leaf litter.
Your reward will be scrumptious eggs!
Rounding Up
Clearly, slugs, with their multitude of teeth, are designed to be very effective pests.
Given the sheer volume of slugs, it’s understandable that it can appear to be impossible to stop them from obliterating your crops.
Using a variety of control methods should help provide relief (for your plants and you) from their excessive appetite of these toothy visitors.