How to Make a Beer Trap for Slugs & Snails 🐌 -

VIDEO TUTORIAL BELOW

How to make a beer trap for slugs and snails? This is a great tip for protecting your plants from the terror of those slugs and snails decimating all your hard work.

Beer Traps are Sustainable

This beer trap for slugs and snails is ecologically friendly and it does work. Indeed there is a certain schadenfreude in counting out your haul the next morning 😱.

No Need to Worry Which Beer

No need for posh beer either. I have had first hand experience of those considering this technique to be a waste of beer. I am afraid I would rather Tesco Value than industry pesticide.

Any Old Container Will Do

In the video John is using a plastic cup and a friend of mine asked if an old china cup would do. Absolutely. The main point is that the lip of the cup must be about 2cm above ground. Slugs and snails will climb over the lip. If the container is flush at ground level, your friendly beetles, toads, newts etc. would be caught too and that would be a shame.

Easy Pickings

This beer trap is a very simple hack for pest control. You will only need to fill up your container to about one third of beer and leave it overnight. Very easy and several can be dotted about at any one time. In the morning, just empty out the slugs for the blackbirds and repeat.

It Works!

Snowdrops showing slug damage before beer trap set — **Slug damage** 😡

We have had a huge problem this year with our Galanthus nivalis and slugs. John had divided some out, replanted them and wham bam! the slugs moved in.

After putting out traps front and back, we’ve had good results this year with counts of between 12 and 15 slugs. When we haven’t been putting our out traps it’s amazing how quickly they come back so guess who will be out later beer can in hand!

(Click here for tutorial on how to divide snowdrops )