Slug fest: Wet summer creates slimy problem for Alberta gardeners

They're squishy and spineless and they leave a path of slimy destruction everywhere they go. Slugs.

After a monsoon-like summer, many Alberta gardens are overrun with the slow-moving pests.

"We had them all over the garage, the driveway and the flowers," said Benjamin Louie who lives in Leduc. "We saw slugs kind of peppered all over the place. It really creeped me out.

"It was pretty alarming because we've never seen that many slugs. It's been a weird summer, to say the least."

Louie said the slippery creatures started devouring his garden last week. He sought out some extermination tips on YouTube and decided to drown his garden slugs with beer traps.

It was a waste of beer but it worked.- Benjamin Louie

"We just had them out for one night because apparently if you set up the traps and you leave them out too long, they'll start attracting all the slugs from the entire neighbourhood," Louie said.

"It was a waste of beer but it worked."

The warm, wet weather has created perfect conditions for the pests, said Edmonton-based ecologist Lien Luong.

Slugs are more destructive than you might expect, she said. They can nibble garden plants to pieces.

'They reproduce like mad'

"They eat a variety of things and they eat several times their body weight so they can do quite a lot of damage," Luong said in an interview with CBC Radio's Edmonton AM.

"And on top of that, they reproduce like mad. Some species can lay up to 500 eggs in their lifetime, that's in a year."

Luong, an assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta, is studying parasites like roundworms that could help quash populations of slugs, eliminating the need for harmful chemicals and pesticides.

As part of her ongoing slug study, she's been asking people to donate live specimens to her lab.

By dissecting hundreds of Edmonton slugs, Luong hopes to find a local parasite that could help gardeners and farmers protect their crops.

Until that happens, ensuring you have a tidy garden is one of the best ways to prevent a slug invasion, Luong said.

"Slugs like to hide in damp, dark places in the day time," she said. "Reduce the number of hiding places you have in your garden. You should also remove some of that mulch and leaf litter."

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Luong said a heaping treatment of diatomaceous earth or a smattering of eggshells can also help protect a garden but hand-plucking the slugs may be your best bet.

"Pick them early in the morning or dawn or in the early evening, at dusk," she said.

"Even though it's time consuming, aside from pesticides, hand-picking is the best method. Beer can work, too, but it has mixed results."