What's Wrong With My Plant?  Slugs and Snails
 Slugs and their hard-shelled cousins, snails, are two of the most destructive garden pests on the planet. They feed on a number of different plants, be they ornamental or fruit or vegetable. They're especially attracted to hostas, leafy green lettuce, dense ground cover and thick mulch. Slugs and snails leave a trail of slime and holes in leaves and are most active in the spring.Methods for control: Eliminate the sites that slugs and snails favor most. Set a trap by laying a rock or board in an area where they seem to frequent, and leave it there for a day or two. Then, around mid-morning, flip it over. Chances are, a huddled mass of the mollusks will be resting there. Dispose by picking them up with chopsticks or tweezers, and drop them into a bucket filled with soapy water, where they'll quickly drown. Diatomaceous earth, when applied around the base and to the leaves of plants prone to attack, deters both slugs and snails. Mined from old sea beds, diatomaceous earth appears to be a fine powder, but to slugs and snails, it's like walking on broken glass. All-natural slug deterrents are made of iron phosphate and contain a bait that's attractive to snails as well as slugs. Iron phosphate paralyzes a mollusk's digestive system, and the slugs simply stop eating. To apply, sprinkle around plants at the rate of one pound per 1,000 square feet. Within three to six days, you will have no more slugs. Iron phosphate formulations are safe for use around everything that grows, including vegetable crops. And because they don't contain metaldehyde--the synthetic chemical most often found in slug and snail bait products--they're also safe to use around pets and wildlife. Perhaps the most popular control method among gardeners is the old beer trap, which is nothing more than a container filled with beer. Use some sort of vessel at least three to four inches deep, or you can buy fancy versions of the same thing from lawn-and-garden stores. To work properly, however, dig a shallow hole and position the container into the ground so that its lip is even with soil surface. Make sure that there's at least an inch between the lip and the beer. That makes it easier for the little critters to just slide right in without escaping and drown. A teaspoon of flour or brewer's yeast mixed with the beer is said to make the mixture even more enticing. The brand of beer does not matter. Regardless of the beer, replace it every three days or after heavy rains.
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