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Slugs have a love-hate relationship with potatoes.   Slugs love potatoes, but the spuds can also serve as a death trap for slugs.

Do Slugs Eat Potatoes?

Yes, slugs will eat potatoes.  Slugs in potatoes can cause as much damage to potato plants as does potato blight.  Potato blight is the most serious disease that potato growers worry about, is caused by a fungus, and is very difficult to control.

Slugs love to live under the leaves of potatoes and then munch on the tubers, causing much damage.  Just one small hole in a tuber causes the entire potato to rot. 

Planting Potatoes

During the winter, eggs and adult slugs live underground or under the leaves of plant refuse left in the garden.  In the spring, the eggs hatch, and the slugs crawl up through soil cracks and up the plant stems.

In the spring, increase slug control in the potato beds, till, spade, or turn the bed at least once, preferably twice as soon as the soil can be worked.  The overturned soil will expose eggs and overwintering slugs for birds to feast.

In late summer, when the potatoes are matured, pick as soon as possible to prevent slugs from attacking the potatoes underground.

How to Stop Slugs Eating Potatoes

Grow early maturing varieties of potatoes.  The longer the potatoes remain in the garden, the higher the chance of slugs munching on them, especially in the autumn.

Hilling potatoes while they are growing helps to prevent slugs from crawling up to the stems.

Traditional organic methods of using diatomaceous earth, copper, cracked eggshells, beer traps, etc., can control above-ground slugs.  But for slugs that live underground, these methods will not be effective, so apply nematodes to the potato bed in the spring.  Nematodes are tiny, parasitic worms that live in the soil and destroy slugs by eating them.

Flat pieces of potato, or potato skins, laid out in the garden, make excellent traps for slugs.  The potato pieces can be cleaned of slugs and reused for several days.

Author Marilyn Pokorney
Copyright Marilyn Pokorney 2021