OK all you slug and fly lovers, found something yesterday that definitely going to try. Was looking up stuff about pennies as I am going to do a copper penny bar top. Found all kinds of stuff that your extra pennies are good for, and here's one in particular the war on slugs and bug folks can use. If you take an old ball, any old ball, like a tennis ball or old bowling ball, seen it's better days gazing ball, anything round, the bigger the better, gorilla glue pennies all over it to cover it. Set it (or them) in your garden where you have slug problems, it will deter the slugs, they will RUN the other way. If you have hydrangeas and you set one by the bush, it will turn the flowers blue! For flies, and this is supposedly an old dairy farm trick, take a ziploc bag, put 5 pennies in it (don't ask me why 5), add a cup of water and zip it up, hang them from tree limbs, bushes, by your front door, wherever, will deter flies! Apparently the dairy farmers used to hang them all over the place, and it worked for them! Think I will make a necklace out of these little bags and hang them around my neck when black fly season starts. But found it interesting how those penny covered balls will make the slugs go away, will definitely try that as the ducks and chickens are not out at the crack of dawn and the slugs are all over the place! Plus the copper covered balls look pretty scattered all over the place, and you can set them on any pedestal as well, like an old chafing dish stand, or make one out of twigs and branches. Guess we'll have to have the dogs outside more and more to guard them all tho!
You can of course shine up the pennies first using plain vinegar with a few pinches of salt, slosh them around for just a half minute, most of the junk comes off, then put them unrinsed on an old rag with some baking soda and rub them around, you most certainly don't have to do one at a time, just rub a bunch of them, then rinse them off, dry, and they will look like new. Of course, being out in the weather they will oxidize over time, but should stay shiny for most of the summer anyway. The other good thing is you can use the vinegar solution a few times, just add a bit more salt each use. And that old rag can be used a few times too. Can see it now, all of these people working in their gardens surrounded by copper balls and wearing strange ziploc necklaces ;]
