The Why?

My daughter has been organically gardening in our yard for 3 years.  I've been drawn in for various reasons, one of which is I like eating what is grown.  I provide a lot of muscle, engineering, construction, and irrigation, among other things.  Pests are always a problem in organic gardens, no poisons (or at least artificial ones), ya know.
 
 
 
 

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Slugs have been hammering our beans this year.  Eating the new sprouts of leaves at the junctures of stems.  Sowbugs have been too, but that's a different story/problem.  I've been using diatomaceaous earth for them.  Those little diatom bodies get in the crawly creatures joints and grind them to a halt.  May seem cruel, but it better than chemicals.  Doesn't seem to work on slugs.
 
 

I've used the traditional beer-based slug traps for a while, but they don't seem to be doing enough this year to get the beans past the vulnerable stage.  The slug traps also do a great job on the sow bugs, but there is such an abundance of them, there are still plenty to do their chewing chores.
 
 

Slugs versus Copper

Slugs are known to not cross copper.  Causes some kind of irritation from a reaction with their slime.  Copper tape is available at garden stores, but its $7 for a roll only 15 ft.  A bit spendy for running a strip all the way around the outside of each raised bed (5x16 ft).  I wanted a more targeted method anyway because the slugs were already inside the beds.  So, I figure, put the tape on some thin-walled tubing and put that at the base of each bean plant.  Finding the right tubing wasn't easy, but I finally settled on the tubes used to keep golf clubs organized in golf bags, $1 each and one tube makes about 30 of my little slug barrier tubes.

So, now to the point of all this...   What do you make?...

I tried doing all this by hand, but it was very crude and took a lot longer and a lot more effort.  Basically, it is:
1) wrap the tube with copper tape,
2) cut the tube to length,
3) slit the tube so it can be opened up and put around the plant stem.

I needed a better way because I had a lot more to make.  It occurred to me that the lathe might be well suited for this task.

Doing it on my small lathe went like this...

First, I had to figure out how to hold the tube on the lathe.  I found a piece of aluminum from another project that the tube fit over snuggly.  I clamped that on the chuck of the lathe and made a toolholder that would hold a knife blade.

 
 
 
 

That knife blade toolholder was then used to cut the tubing to the right length.
 
 
 
 

Like this.
 
 
 
 

Next is wrapping the tube with copper tape.
 
 
 
 

Cut the tape so there is some overlap.
 
 
 
 

And press the end down to finish the wrap.
 
 
 
 

Slit the tube so it can be spread and put around the stem of a plant.
 
 
 
 

And Viola! a finished Slug Barrier Tube.
 
 
 
 

And here is what it looks like in use.  They will be reusable, so I shouldn't have to make many more for future years.  My neighbor thought I should sell them and make a million $$.
 
 
 

Since putting these slug barriers out, I've not found any slugs on the bean plants.  Hardly a single new leaf has been eaten and the plants are now starting to thrive.  Sowbugs are still getting to the plants, but not as many as there were.  So far, I've made over 100 of the barrier tubes.  Hard to figure, I never would have thought there were that many bean plants in my yard.

This was actually a very trivial project for the lathe, but it is nice to make something useful.  Doing it on the lathe was a lot faster, easier, and more consistent than by hand.

Acid Test?

What about a real life slug challenge?  Never thought I'd see this, but here is a sequence of photos showing a slug foregoing a fresh new sprout in favor of a beer trap.