Controlling Slugs with Copper Tape

My husband, Bill, is a genius! As you have probably seen, I place rings of copper tape around the base of my cabbage family seedlings to keep the slugs away.

The amazing thing is that contact with copper causes an electrical reaction with the skin of slugs so it can be used as a deterrent.

What I’ve been doing is purchasing a roll of Corry’s copper tape from our local garden center and, instead of separating the copper tape from its paper backing, I keep the two together, form a ring and staple the ends together.

I’ve known that folks can adhere the copper tape to the rim of plant containers or raised beds, but it’s kind of expensive. Hence, my simple solution to create (relatively) stiff rings and place them around the plants. Unfortunately, those rings don’t hold up well to moisture and humidity so they don’t last for more than a season… and sometimes barely that. But they do work well so that’s why I’ve been putting up with this.

Well, Bill had an “aha!” moment and decided to do some experimentation. You can see the result in the photo above.

First, he grabbed some 3″ diameter plastic drain pipe from an old project. He cut it into rings that are about 1 1/3″ tall. Then he separated the copper tape from the paper backing and attached the tape to each plastic ring. So the rings are super sturdy and impervious to moisture, plus they’re a large enough diameter to easily slip over each seedling once they’ve been planted. Brilliant!

So now we’re going to replace the paper rings with the new-and-improved plastic rings and see how they hold up in the garden. I tell ya, he’s a handy guy to have around!