What's eating my garden?

[Teenytoona]

I actually had some time to spend weeding in my garden this weekend! Woot. I noticed that something is really enjoying my plants. It seems the short plants (any sprout) and my spinach is being munched on by I don't know what. Even the weeds have holes all through the leaves (the short weeds that it). My only clue: my pea plants have holes in them only about 2-3 inches up, above that, they look nice and healthy, no holes in them. It doesn't look like a larger animal is eating them, the leaves have holes in them, not eaten entirely. Some invertebrate, probably.

What could it be? I didn't see anything on them at all. I only saw one ladybug in the garden at that time. I know the local stray cats hang out near the garden, but other than that, I'm not sure what frequents to garden to eat my crops.

[Rhiannon Feimorgan]

Sounds like slugs. They hide during the day so you're not likely to see them. Try setting out some shallow dishes of beer as traps. Or even some pieces of scrap wood here and there. They will crawl underneath to get out of the sun and you can flip the board over and scrape them off into a bucket to dispose of them.

[Teenytoona]

Hmm good excuse to buy a few brewkies! Makes me wish I had access to petri dishes. Any good ideas of non-lab equipment to use?

Did I read somewhere that crushed egg shells also work as slug repellents?

[Rhiannon Feimorgan]

I use lids from yogurt containers.

Crushed egg shells can work. The shells are sharp on the slugs soft bodies. Dimatocus (sp?)earth works on the same principle. Copper tape around the edges of your garden can work well too.