If slugs are taking over your yard or home, you will want a way to get rid of them that is easy and effective.
Over time, many people have come out with “natural remedies” for repelling bugs and small creatures away from the yard.
With so many people claiming that their method works the best, it is hard to know which method works at all.
Let’s dive into one of the natural remedies for getting rid of slugs to see how it works and if it is effective.
Why Does It Matter?
Slugs may seem like harmless and formless creatures that spend their lives slithering around and leaving gooey trails wherever they go. But although they may be harmless to us, they can be quite harmful to our gardens.
When a slug or group of slugs are in your garden, you will notice your plants getting eaten and damaged by the slug coming through. Slugs eat leaves, the fruit/vegetables on the plants, and the decaying plant matter.
Slugs can make your plants vulnerable to diseases from eating the leaves of a plant. They will also ruin your harvest by munching on the produce that your plant makes.
As gardeners, slugs can prove to be very frustrating. The only way to stop this destruction of plants is to force them away from your garden.
Garlic sprays are a great and effective way to make sure that slugs won’t be eating the food that you want to eat.
How to Use Garlic Spray to Get Rid of Slugs
Using garlic spray is a super easy method to get rid of the pesky slugs in your garden.
You don’t need to pay lots of money for a ton of ingredients to make a spray that will end up expiring. You also don’t need that much time or tools to make this spray as well.
How to Make Garlic Spray
If you want to use garlic spray to get rid of the slugs in your garden, you first need to know how to make it.
Garlic spray has a super easy recipe that takes practically no time at all (other than the waiting time.)
To make garlic spray, all you need is a bulb of garlic, a liter of water, and a blender or food processor.
Place the bulb of garlic into your liter or water and put it into your blending device. Blend until the garlic has fully broken down into the water.
Allow your spray to stand for at least 10 minutes so it can release the chemical that makes sure slugs won’t be coming back.
Strain out the remaining solid chunks of garlic. If you want to leave the small bits of garlic, just be aware that the garlic can block the “straw” of your spray bottle. Put the garlic water into a spray bottle and then you are good to go.
If you want your garlic spray to be stronger, add dish soap or salt into the mixture. However, if you want to double your garlic spray as a dish seasoner, then don’t add soap.
How Does Garlic Spray Work?
Not only does the smell of garlic do a good job of repelling many bugs, but there is also a chemical compound in garlic spray that actively repels slugs.
During the time that you allow your garlic spray to sit, a chemical called allicin gets released into the water.
This spreads the scent of the garlic along with its oils to the rest of the water and further incorporates the garlic into the water. Then, the entire thing of water will have the ability to repel slugs.
If you add salt to your spray, that will kill any slugs it comes into contact with. Salt dries out a slug and they need to be moist to live. Dish soap will also irritate them and possibly kill them.
Where to Use Garlic Spray?
The great thing about garlic spray is that you can spray it anywhere. It is completely natural so it won’t be harmful to wildlife or kids.
This is perfect if you have pets that run through the yard or kids that like to play in your backyard.
Garlic spray will also help the plants that you end up spraying as it is a natural fungicide. It will prevent your plants, especially those that have gotten munched by slugs, from getting any fungal infections that could kill them.
Spray your garlic spray wherever you see a lot of slugs chilling out. By your plants, on the leaves of your plant, and in the corners where your garden meets a building are all places that you should be spraying.
If you know where the slugs are coming from, spray the garlic mixture around there as well.
Then, if you are aiming to kill the slugs with a garlic salt mixture, you can also spray directly on the slugs. Also, slugs can get killed by just garlic alone if the garlic oils coat their bodies.
Slugs don’t react well to garlic in any of its forms. That’s why using garlic spray, garlic powder, or even planting garlic plants are extremely effective ways to keep the slugs away from your plants.
Garlic spray will also work well in repelling many other kinds of bugs. While garlic tastes great according to our tastebuds, small creatures and bugs hate the smell.
If you have any kind of bug problem in your house or in your garden, consider using garlic spray to make sure they won’t want to be around you at all.
Garlic Spray Won’t Harm Your Plants
Again, using garlic spray won’t cause any harm to your plants. Plants won’t care that you sprayed a garlic mixture on them, as long as you only put garlic in it.
If you put salt into your garlic spray, don’t spray down your plants. Salt can be harmful to your plants and to the soil that your plants need to survive. It will end up killing more than just bugs, but your plants as well.
4 Tips and Reminders for Getting Rid of Slugs Using Garlic Spray
If 1 Garlic Bulb isn’t Strong Enough, Add More
If you feel that your garlic spray needs a bit more power in it to effectively keep away all the slugs, add more garlic to the mixture. Add another garlic bulb and go through the rest of the making process like normal.
Having a more potent mixture will make it smell a lot stronger but also add more of the garlic oils and allicin to the water as well.
If the slugs weren’t a fan of your spray now, they certainly won’t get near your plants with the stronger spray.
Combine This Repellent with Other Repellents
Another way to add more potency to your slug repellents is to use multiple repellents.
It’s not smart to combine several kinds of chemical repellents but feel free to add more natural repellents along with a garlic spray.
Slugs don’t like strong peppery smells so make a mixture with spicy peppers and water. Just be careful not to spray it somewhere your pets and kids can get cause the spiciness can transfer from objects to your skin.
Any strongly scented plant is good to keep in your garden to make sure that slugs will stay far away from your produce.
If you spray down your garden with a garlic spray along with having other strong-smelling plants will prevent slugs and all sorts of other bugs from wanting to stop by for a snack.
If Nothing Else Works, Call a Professional
Sometimes we want natural remedies to work and to take care of a problem ourselves, but the problem might be too much to handle ourselves.
In this case, you might have to call a professional to help you with your slug problem.
There is nothing wrong with needing to ask for help and there’s nothing wrong with needing help fighting against slugs. They may seem like a silly bug to be causing such a huge problem, but when they are eating your plants, they can be a huge nuisance.
A professional will be able to use the best chemical insecticide that will be safe for any kids and plants in your home. It can still cause problems to local wildlife, but a good professional will do what it takes to minimize the damage as much as possible.
You might like: How To Get Rid of Magpies (11 Effective Ways)
Final Thoughts
Don’t let slugs in your garden eat away at your plants and your produce. If the problem is left for too long, you won’t have any fruit or vegetables to harvest!
Make a garlic spray to get rid of the slugs in your garden. It costs very little money, takes very little time, and is still highly effective.
If you have used garlic spray to get rid of slugs in your garden, let us know how it worked by sharing your results in the comments!
If you have other remedies to get rid of slugs, share those in the comments as well.
