The usual advice is remove slug habitat (tarps, wood, leaf litter, etc), pick them off at night (maybe with tongs or two sticks, chopstick style) and don't over-water. They need constant moisture, so if you can water less frequently, that may help. Of course, if you are direct seeding, you kind of have to water at least once per day.

I also use a product called sluggo, which I feel is relatively safe, and available in an organic formulation, and doesn't seem to harm animals other than snails and slugs.

Then the other bits of advice (won't help you now) are plant lots of extra seeds, or start the seedlings in flats in a slug-free place and transplant them when they are a few weeks along.

--McKenzie

Just in case you are interested there is an organic product. Sluggo, made from iron phosphate. Very effective, supplements soil as it degrades, safe around children and animals, and none of the chemical side effects.

Dave

Dave, could you please read this and tell me what you think? I stepped on a large slug last night and was not wearing shoes, it was a major ick experience. So this morning I got there half an hour before Home Depot opened (they keep some of their plants outside, it looks like, so I picked up a Sungold tomato) and got the Bug-Geta as soon as they opened.
I value your advice and do not mind making future purchases of Sluggo, but want to hear what you and other readers have to say first.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sluggo

Just get sluggo, I use it all the time and it works great. No need for the sluggo plus, just regular sluggo... The other "bug geta" stuff... You may as well just go buy your produce at the store... Toxic crap IMO, and not necessary.

Think about what eats those slugs after they may have ingested the bug geta... Birds...

Howelbama,

I'd like someone to address the information in the link please.

I did.

Use sluggo or beer traps, not bug geta... If you use sluggo, don't go crazy with it, use it in moderation and as directed on the label.

I have read the article linked in that thread before but honestly, like many others I find it hard to believe that the Sluggo iron phosphate pellets are more toxic than or even as toxic as the metaldehyde-based ones. That's even if the Sluggo does contain EDTA.

Needless to say I'm not advocating feeding them to pets or wildlife or even allowing pets access to the garden when they are in use. But that specific issue aside, I prefer the use of the lesser toxic "poison" whenever possible. And Sluggo does still have it certified organic approval rating for what that is worth.

Personally I don't drag out any of the chems of any kind unless an infestation and damage is severe and can't be controlled with any of the other methods. But you have indicated that is the case now for you so ultimately it will be your choice.

So keeping in mind your bare feet would you prefer they crawl off and die or lay around in piles to be stepped on? :-)

Dave

Agree with the above. In the cases where the dogs were poisoned, it states that they ate LARGE amounts of it, and all of them were treated and survived. I'm speculating that either the sluggo was left around in large piles, or maybe they got to the actual container and had a field day eating it.

If any of those dogs ate large amounts of carbamates, they would be dead.

Dave, you make some good points.

Just my .02 worth. I've battled slugs many times, and generally don't put out anything to attract them anymore. Just seems to attract every slug in the neighborhood. I bought a bag of diatomaceous earth a few years ago, and if a slug makes it through a line of that stuff they'll regret it. Seems to work pretty well. Has to be freshened up fairly often, but IMO works pretty well. Don't buy the pool filter kind, but the garden kind. A very fine white powder. It cost's about $10 and I'm still using the same bag I bought several years ago.

I can vouch for metaldehyde's toxicity, having nearly killed our Sheltie a number of years ago. I now use Sluggo but not in our current dog's area at all.

Sometimes I wonder if Sluggo really works. Every year I lose the battle for the hostas. This spring I got so tired of it I tore out all the hostas, and I'm glad I did. When I see beautiful hostas in gardening magazine pictures, I just shake my head and wonder how they do it. Are there areas where there are no slugs/snails?

There's a lot of strong opinions here about various methods to battle slugs, and various parties dogging down other methods. But I guess all's fair in war.
The new butternut squash seedlings are just poking through, and I love butternut squash.

This post was edited by lucille on Sun, May 19, 13 at 19:59

That's why you have to do what you think is best. Only you can really evaluate the seriousness of your problem and go from there. Either will do the job so why not try both products in separate places and see which gets the results you prefer.

Good luck on eliminating them.

Dave

FYI, my local Home Depot doesn't carry the brand name Sluggo, but they do carry Natria brand "Snail & Slug Killer Bait", which seems to be the same thing. Your HD may have different inventory, but it might save you some searching time.

Walmart carries Sluggo I think or something like it, also.
Thanks all for your posts here.
Dave, you are a natural leader.
Anyway, since I actually had Bug-Geta from my early morning trip to Home Depot, I'll use it. That might mean I am in for an unpleasant surprise in the morning with all those squishy slug bodies in the garden. I might get some low value seeds like birdseed which I have plenty of, and plant them elsewhere (I couldn't experiment with my beloved butternuts) and check out which does best in a couple weeks when I need to buy more.

That information about sluggo (the Bill Meyer/Hostas stuff) was kind of an eye-opener for me. I suspect the problem is that the little pellets are very similar to dog food.

But it is weird to me that somehow EDTA makes Iron MORE available instead of less. Since it is a chelating agent, I would have thought the EDTA would prevent the release of the iron. Not my field of expertise. Also, I don't think EDTA is very toxic by itself. They put it in shampoo. I found an MSDS and the LD50 is 2000 mg/kg body weight. So the 20 kilo dog would have a 50% chance of surviving if it ate 40 grams of EDTA. Not sure how much EDTA is in the sluggo. But we are definitely not talking about a few pellets. The thing is, my dog has free access to the garden. I may stop using the sluggo now. I guess I can still use it on seedlings that are protected by bird netting (which also keeps the dog out). But I will be more careful.

You have to fight slugs/snails in more than one way.

1) by hand picking at night( get a good flash light)
2) find their hiding place: under the stones, thick vegetation and get them.

3) in the meant time use slug bait. The name "BAIT" is confusing because neither slug is attracted to nor eats it. But as crawls over it, sort of bleeds and dies. I have used BUG GETA. Aside from environmental issues, it is very effective. All you have to do is to sprinkle lightly around the plant (or a group of plants) that you want to protect.

4) another method is to throw FRENCH TULLE over your seedlings. But make sure that slugs cannot crawl under it. The fabric is very inexpensive and sold in fabric stores. I have used it also against rats, rabbits, birds, beetles..etc. This fabric is a "SEE through " thing and comes in various mesh size and colors.

But as I said, hand picking at nghts is the best way to reduce them to the point of elimination. Last year I had a major problem with them and battled them to the point of distinction. So this year there has been very few of them and I am working on them and have not seen a major damage.Obviouly, after a while when your seedling grow vines, slugs cannot cause a major damage. But they can eat othe small veggies like basils..etc.

Mckenziek, thank you for the toxicity information.
Seysonn, I do not feel comfortable being out in my garden at night so I can't hand pick them that way. It will be light outside in another hour and a half or so, I'm anxious to see if there are any dead slugs out there.

After years of slug war, the great peacemakers are the five chickens we got last year. It is simply amazing! My spring cabbage did not even have holes in its lowest leaves until a few days ago, and usually it's a slug hotel by now. Anyway, I know everyone can't keep chickens, but if you can and you have slugs, letting them work the garden in winter will work wonders.

Howelbama
That is pretty insulting. I have a slug problem, I cam here to discuss it, and I am listening to what each person here brings to the table.
You may feel as if once you have spoken, that should take care of it all and no further discussion is warranted, and no further concerns need be voiced; but I think it best to allow all to bring their experiences here. I thought that is what this board was for.
I do not have stock in either Slug-Geta or Sluggo, and I don't recall even hearing about EDTA in the past. I think all this information is valuable not only to educate, but to allow people to make an informed choice.

classic

I agree with Lucille; this has been an educational and legitimate discussion about slugs and how to control them. To call it trolling is not only unfair, but baffling. I've been following this thread because I also recently decided to buy Sluggo (or rather, the Natria brand version of the same) based on information I've read on these forums, so this discussion was timely for me.

Thank you to those who contributed to the thread; I found it very helpful.

The reason I call POSSIBLE trolling is because these topics (pesticides, herbicides, fetilizers, etc...) almost always cause heated and very opinionated debates. In almost every case, there have been several previous threads discussing the very same topic(s).

A simple search here, or on google, will turn up some similar threads. Why not just read one of those for the opinion(s) you are looking for, or just bump one if you want to refresh the topic.

At any rate, that is my final though on this. Sorry if I offended anyone's sensibilites by inferring this may be trolling.

I think most poeple will agree, anytime you can avoid spraying anything is the best for everyone.

But , niether am I going to condemn someone for dealing with invasive species, if you do not have them, be grateful, but try to understand.

In regards to slugs, I find having loads of frogs and toads help the most =). But of course that doesnt apply to everyone.

Silverkelt

To me , there is a battle for survival, eVen in our garden. Sluggs and I, both like Zucchini.
Environment is for me to survive. I come first then the slugs and earthworms and rabbits..etc.
When something is put on the shelves by aproval of govenmental authorities(like BUG_GETA) I use it without feelin guilty BECAUSE I WANT THE ZUCCHINI MORE THAN THE SLUGS.

Seysonn,
I love your description 'battle for survival' because I too feel I am at war with the slugs.
Government approval? That's opening a can of slugs there, but I hear what you are saying.
I want a bumper crop of butternuts this year, and everything else too.

I just bought a bag of Nutria at HD today (1% iron phospate). Would it be any less effective if instead of spreading it inside my containers and raised beds, spreading it on the ground that surrounds same? I always look to avoid spreading things that I don't know much about near my veggies, especially when it is a subject of great debate.

I sprinkle them as a narrow band(about an inch wide) around seedlings OR on the side/direction That I know they(slugs) will be coming from. I have fond a method to make the bait last longer and that is, I SPREAD A LAYER OF SAND FIRST then I sprinkle the bait on it. Any sand will do, play sand paver sand. Or if you do not have sand, use the coffee ground coming out of your coffee maker. This one by itself is a deterant and killer too.

AS I have mentioned in a previous post, You can cover a ROW OF SEEDLINGs with nylon tulle. I do that some times too.

Don't slugs only eat seedlings? Once you get out there few nights, and catch the slugs, they don't seem to come back... per my experience. I have used beer traps too, but I think hand picking them in the middle of the night is most effective.

Like I said, do that for a week or so, and the plants are grown larger, then slugs become a secondary problem.

I tried diatomaceous earth, copper wrapped around the pots, beer, ammonia water spray, sandpaper collars around the plants - I had snails more than slugs and was a madwoman out there at night with a flashlight picking them off. Sometimes I thought I could hear them laughing at me....no more. Lucille, get the iron phosphate bait (what I bought was Sluggo but it goes by other names). You need very little and need encircle only the plants that you want to protect. I grow in large smart pots and sprinkle a teaspoon around the inside of the rim only. It saved the lives of my basil and lemon trees (yes, I found them two feet off the ground in the leaf canopy having their nightly salad). I have noted that occasionally a tree roach (you know the kind we have here, the big ones that fly) will snack on it. I don't know if it kills them or not. My toad and lizard populations remain strong so it hasn't seemed to impact them at all. Hope this helps!

Just got back inside from a midnight mission. Found 4 decent size slugs on my pepper plants and string beans. Promptly removed them. Will check back tomorrow night, if problem persists I am putting down the Natria on Monday.

Good for you Njitgrad!
Forgot to mention, and seems everyone left out also, is the fact that some people use broken egg shells to keep away slugs. I think they do help in keeping away the slugs, but still the best method is to meet them eye to eye at evenings and squish them.

Four? My expeditions usually netted 100+ in 20 minutes. Now with Sluggo I stay inside sipping tea.

"Don't slugs only eat seedlings?" No, they (and snails) will eat almost anything if there are enough of them and they are hungry enough. I find them eating shrubs, perennials, bulbs (especially the flowers) vegetables, herbs, clematis shoots and flowers, root crops (in the ground), fruit and the corpses of each other. Almost the only things they don't appear to like are ferns and tree trunks. I think people are coming at this question from different experiences. There are those who get the odd slug or snail and use egg shells etc and there are those who can gather 100s in a short hunting trip round the garden. For us egg shells, beer traps, coffee grounds, copper tape, sharp sand and all the other home grown solutions barely touch the surface of the problem. In my experience the only really effective ways to stop slugs and snails are search and destroy (ie kill, not just throw away because they'll be back) and slug bait.

Here is a link that might be useful: Another slug and snail thread

I am comfortable using Sluggo around my dog, but what about birds? I stopped using it near the bird feeder because I wasn't sure. Does anybody have any experience on this?

Right now, in our dry season, I don't see them around. Maybe they are hibernating. But I approached them in multiple of ways. THE MOST EFFECTIVE ONE being hunting and killing them, To supplement this I used SLUGGO type of chemical around the sensitive seedling .

I also collected my used coffee ground, ground the egg shells in coffee grinder a bit, mix them with some sand and saw dust with some commercial slug bait ... spread it generously in the critical areas. IT HAS PAID OFF, b/c of mostly hunting them constantly for two years now.

I have monster 4" long grey and black spotted slugs, plus the little regular ones. Fortunately I grow mostly in containers, but they will climb containers in a minute. This year I bought a roll of the conductive copper tape. The Chinese narrow stuff from ebay for a few bucks for 30 meters worth. Better than $11 for a few yards of the stuff Home Depot sells. I wrapped it around 3 containers, and have not seen 1 slug above (or below) the copper tape.

I have rather large Hosta in my backyard that doesn't get assaulted by slugs. I know that slugs are a problem in my area because of the chatter in the local garden center. However, I've found using the gum balls that drop off the gum trees in my yard are a HUGE slug deterrent.

Now I collect them and sprinkle around the base of my plants. The extra bonus is the balls are slow to break down so they act as mulch too.