Spring has sprung and the garden is progressing nicely.  When I went out to check the tomatoes today, though, I noticed that some of them had a few holes in the leaves.  I’m thinking it’s likely slugs.

I don’t usually do a lot of pest control in my garden– well, really, none– but I figured maybe this is the year to try it out.  In the interest of establishing really, really healthy tomato plants, I decided to try to cut the slugs off at the pass.

I feel like I read about or heard about making these metal plant collars to keep slugs out somewhere.  I can’t really find what was in my brain online, but I’m quite certain I didn’t make it up myself.  It is possible that I’ve horribly twisted some real solution in the recesses of my memory, but I don’t think my solution will hurt, at least.

I had a couple of extra toilet paper rolls hanging around– like, who doesn’t?  So, the 3 year old and I headed out to the tomato patch with toilet paper rolls, aluminum foil, a knife and cutting board (that was for me, not the 3 year old), and a few paper clips.  I know, you are thinking, “She is totally MacGyver.”  I aim to impress, people.

Here’s what we did.  Essentially, the overview is that we cut the toilet rolls into smaller rolls, covered them with aluminum foil, and wrapped them around the stems of the small plants.  For some reason I think that the metal will deter the slugs; I think copper in particular will do it, but I’m banking on foil, as well.  We’ll see how that works out.

Now, in more detail:

Step 1:  Slice the toilet paper roll (or paper towel roll) into smaller cylinders, about 2″ tall.

Step 2:  Slice each new cylinder vertically, allowing you to unroll or open it.

Step 3:  Tear off a piece of aluminum foil that will cover the unrolled cylinder.  Place the cylinder on the foil.

Step 4:  Fold the bottom of the foil up.

Step 5:  Fold the top of the foil down.

Step 6:  Re-mold the aluminum-covered cardboard into a cylinder.

Pretty easy.  Then, you place the collar around the base of the plant:

he gets paid a good wage

The first few I did, I not only folded the foil up and down, I folded the edges in so that all I had was solid cardboard covered in foil.  This system made closing the collars a little more difficult, so I used a paper clip on these, like so:

With a little experience I got a bit smarter, and I left a longer “tail” of foil beyond the ends of the cardboard so that when I attached the collar, I could sort of twist and bend the malleable foil together to complete the circle.

I’m really hoping not only that this solution will work against slugs, but that it’s slugs that are eating my plants in the first place.  If you take a look at the kind of sad state of Isis Candy, here:

I’m a little afraid that this damage might be from flea beetles, so I’m probably going to treat for that, too– a natural insecticide, like Neem oil or something like that.  If any of y’all gardeners out there can tell me which I have, I’d be forever grateful.

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