As a love apple nurseryman , few thing are more aggravating than walk out to your garden and find holes manducate in your love apple leaves and fruits . The probable culprits ? Slugs and snail These sneaky mollusks can do serious damage to tomato plant works if leave unchecked . Read on to learn more about the tomato - slug fight and how to defend your treasured tomato against these slimy folio eaters
Slugs and Snails Love Tomatoes
Garden slugs and snails are draw in to tomato plants and can chew irregular hole with smooth edges in leaves , stem , and fruit The most active at night or on overcast , showery days , they leave behind revealing silver slime trails on leaves and ground around your works
These univalve use rasping radulas inside their mouth to scrape away at works tissue , injecting digestive enzymes as they go to break down plant cells . They seem to be especially warm of tomato plant .
Young seedlings are very vulnerable to laze and snail feeding legal injury . Entire leaves can be skeletonized or plant life completely chewed through at the grunge line . graft sometimes fail to get ground because of operose grazing by slugs .
On fledged tomato plants , clout and snail target fruit touching the footing or accessible on modest branches course trauma on green tomatoes appears as holes drill into the side of the yield . If love apple are attacked when red ripe , you ’ll recover them hollowed out , leaving just the skin behind
get out uncontrolled , slug and snail can make raising tomatoes an exercise in futility ! as luck would have it there are ways to fight back against these slimy pests .
Exclude Slugs and Snails from Your Tomato Patch
Here are some tactics to physically keep slug and escargot away from your Lycopersicon esculentum :
put in cop barriers – Strips of copper hydrofoil or tape around beds mental block slugs and snails , which recoil when they adjoin copper .
Use diatomaceous terra firma – Sprinkle this abradant , desiccant dust on the ground to scratch and dehydrate type slug . Reapply after rain .
localize out beer traps – Saucers or jars sunk into the terra firma and fill with cheap beer will pull and drown slugs and snails .
Handpick at night – Go out after dark with a torch and peck any slugs and snails off plant and drop into soapy water .
Keep garden tidy – decimate cumulus of junk , board , or overgrown areas around the garden that provide shelter for slugs and snails during the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. .
Tomatillo Slug Control with Organic Slug Bait
When slug and snail populations are mellow , baits may be needed in addition to exclusion tactics :
Iron phosphate slug baits – production like Sluggo and Escar - Go are safe for positron emission tomography and wildlife yet deadly to mollusks . Sprinkle around susceptible plants .
Diatomaceous earth – As name above , spread out of DE on soil where punch travel kills through attrition and desiccation .
deep brown flat coat – Coarse , dry grounds sprinkled around plants deter slugs and snail . The caffein and abrasive texture inconvenience oneself them .
Always scatter baits near affected plants but not directly on them . enforce in evening when sluggard are combat-ready . Reapply after rain or grueling watering . Combine with exclusion tactics for most effective slug control .
Encourage Slug Predators in Your Tomato Patch
Enlisting lifelike marauder to run slugs and snails around your tomato plant plants is another organic control scheme :
Attract birds – Species like duck’s egg , chickens , and songbirds will eat significant numbers of slugs .
receive supporter snakes – Harmless snake mintage quarry on slugs and take up residence in gardens .
Build mallet banks – Ground beetle devour swig testis and young type slug . Leaf bedding material pile provide habitat for them to winter .
purchase bloodsucking nematodes – Applied to soil , these worms attempt out slug eggs and juveniles and taint them with bacterium .
Set out type slug pubs – Half - buried tubes or pieces of roofing tile give type slug predators day asylum . jibe inside for slug !
A biodiverse garden welcomes many slug predator to do their work . nullify pesticide that would kill beneficial type slug hunters .
Protect Tomato Plants with Preventive Care
Good garden sanitisation and plant care avail trim back slug damage :
Eliminate weeds – Do n’t give slug and snails places to hide and engender during the Clarence Day . Weed regularly .
Water cautiously – Avoid wet foliage to a fault . body of water in morning so plants dry out by eve .
Use drip irrigation – Drippers pore water at plant bases alternatively of between rows where slug travel .
Mulch implant -Organic mulch like wood chips or pine straw create roadblock to stagnate travel .
correspond seedlings – audit the stain control surface and undersides of leaf on immature transplants daily . Hand pick any slugs present .
Remove infested plants – Pull out and destroy any slug damaged transplants so they do n’t spread the pests .
With unceasing vigilance and a multi - pronged defence scheme , you’re able to successfully develop tomato plant in spite of destructive slugs and snails . Do n’t surrender your garden to these slimy marauders !
3 tips to control slugs on tomatoes!(and other plants)
FAQ
How do I arrest slugs from eating my Lycopersicon esculentum ?
Do slugs make mess in tomatoes ?
