Slugs are a pain in the-you-know-what for just about everyone who has a garden or flowerbed. They can take out seedlings that you just planted in your garden that day by the next morning. This causes many people to look for ways to get rid of slugs for good, especially since slugs don’t seem to do anything good for the garden.
Often gardeners are trying to find what they can plant in their garden that slugs won’t eat. Especially since it seems like slugs eat just about anything. Herbs are often an option that gardeners have with when it comes to slug-proof crops. And rosemary is often brought up when it comes to what should be planted that won’t be devoured by slugs.
Will Slugs Eat Rosemary?
Luckily, rosemary is one of the crops that slugs don’t tend to eat. The scent of rosemary actually can repel slugs, they absolutely hate the stuff. It is even used in some DIY slug repellents because the oil from the rosemary is a scent that slugs cannot stand.
Other herbs are not as good at keeping slugs away. Many gardeners will find slugs eating basil or mint that they put out when they usually repel other insects. So getting one herb in your garden that slugs won’t eat is a great thing when fighting these ravenous garden pests.
Use Rosemary to Help Repel Slugs
Rosemary can be used as a companion plant to plant near crops that you want to help keep slugs away from. Planting it near lettuce, broccoli, or Brussels sprouts, which slugs love to munch on, can help you retain more of the produce you grow in your garden.
Since rosemary is a perennial plant you can plant this in corners of your garden bed to help create barriers that will come back year after year. And they will put out a smell to keep slugs away along with other garden pests since it is a great herb to help keep that bugs don’t like.
Rosemary Needles to Repel Slugs
Often you hear people say that you can use rosemary needles as a mulch to help repel slugs from your garden. But many times this doesn’t work very well. While initially, you will have some success with this, as time goes on the oil and scent that keeps slugs away will diminish and the slugs will return. It is easier to use live rosemary bushes and other slug traps or repellents to help keep slugs out of your garden.
If you want to use rosemary needles in a mulch to help not attract slugs, combine it with things such as crushed oyster shells and crushed treen nut shells. The mix of the scent of rosemary and the sharpness of the shells will make the area not a comfortable place for the slugs to roam. Just remember that they will go elsewhere so you need to keep a look out for other parts of your garden that might not have this mulch mixture.