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Step 4Setting the Trap
The bait for the trap is BEER. Slugs can't resist it and will slime their way into it, drink, and eventually asphyxiate (but what a way to go!).
Put the traps down, push them into the soil a bit and bait them with beer. Don't worry about slugs not getting up the side - they are born with commando training and will find their way anywhere. Weight the traps down with a stone.
Notes on beer.
Beer is anything from the lightest golden brown, through amber (possibly with a reddish tinge) to dark, dark, dark brown, and when a sip is taken it should overwhelm the senses with the aroma of hops and malt. It should conjure up visions of drying sheds, malt shovelling and barley fields rippling in the summer breeze.
Beer is not a thin insipid beverage which looks roughly the same leaving the body as it did when it entered it. Some breweries have a problem realising this.
It seems the darker the brew, the more the slugs appreciate it. It's probably the malt which attracts them. I unearthed a bottle of 'BLACK NASTY' in the loft - a homebrew which knows nothing of 'best before' dates - this was past it's prime from day one! but the slugs seem to relish it.
However, they don't object to the cheapest supermarket product either, so if you're not normally a beer-drinker, just buy one bottle or can.
Once the traps have been down a while, recycle the contents onto the compost heap and refill the traps. Let the little blighters do us some good for once.
WARNING - Under no circumstances smell this after it's been down a couple of days. I accidentally got a whiff and spent the next couple of minutes trying desperately to keep my lunch down. I was so overcome that I forgot to take photos of the body-count :- From three traps after two days - 2 large, 5 middling and 4 small slugs.
Not total wipeout yet, but I feel now that I'm doing something to redress the balance and stop the devastation of my plants.
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If you have them lying around, baby jars are actually perfect for this.
I've done this a number of times with great success.
Just fill a baby jar with 1/3 beer, and leave it sitting out near any plant/s you want to protect.
A week later, the thing will be filled with slugs. DEAD ones.
Then, simply screw the lid back on the jar and toss in the trash. NO work involved at all! Those glutinous slugs have only their beer-boozing ways to blame....
Kill them by all means but don't make them drink that stuff!
LOL