Ive been tending to an outdoor garden for 3 years and each year I have huge slug issues. egg shells don’t work, coffee grounds don’t work, Ive tried neem and rosemary and that doesn’t work. I go outside at 10 pm every night and pick off 50+ slugs. I’m trying to avoid using iron phosphate but im beginning to feel defeated and might resort to it. Ive tried to attract more birds. I want to attract toads but I don’t know how and Ive also never seen any type of frog, toad, or snake in my area. I live in a city. how can I defeat these slugs, and if I attract a predator whats the next thing to abduct my plants? organic growing can be very hard :/
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I would look into barrier type products like copper tape and copper strips. I think some types of gravel/ground cover material have proven to be slug repellent as well. Slugs wont crawl across copper tape and some types of rough surfaces, so you can surround your plants with that sort of stuff to help keep them away.
I like this method for control because you can easily create some barriers around your plants without having to spray anything or apply any weird stuff to your garden.
I’ve also heard “beer can traps” can work quite well too. (google that for more info). Slugs like beer, so if you can put some traps out for them it should help keep them off the plants.
Good luck and let us know how it goes!
thanks soup. I will set some beer traps and try the copper tape and let you know how it goes.
Decollate snails are a predatory snail that only chow slugs and other plant eating snails. They are expensive, but a small number (10 or so) easily reproduce with enough food they will either eliminate and die or if you have constant pressure they’ll reproduce and control long term.
I am going to try to get some of these things. I definitely have enough slugs to keep those things alive lol
Copper wire ungrounded though is easily made into a loop that snails will not cross. Buy at home repot or wherever.
I’ve been battling slugs in my vegetable garden for years. (Just the regular east coast kind, not those PNW monster banana slugs.) I’ve used Sluggo (yeast bait, iron phosphate kills them) with good success. The problem is that Sluggo can get expensive and I hear you about concerns for how safe it is. I found it lasts longer by sprinkling on moist soil and covering with cardboard. The cardboard reduces the rain’s melting effect, also cardboard attracts slugs, so in the day you can flip over carboard and knife the fuckers.
I’ve had great success with raised beds and copper tape on the top edge. Have to keep it clean and free of vegetation bridging the tape. I started using this tape (I think it’s for some home-improvement sealing or something) around my young trees after I found slugs up in the friggin tree. Once your plants get big, you could copper tape a few inches up the trunk and block the slugs. The tape breaks when the plant grows, so you’ll need to redo it a few times a season.
Beer traps: Gotta be fresh beer and easy access to slugs. I found it harder than it sounds.
Slug-ovores: I’ve got lots of frogs and garter snakes, but still have the slugs. I lined my wooden raised beds with rocks which gives warmth and protection for the snakes. I used a broken garden pot on its side as a “toad abode” and sometimes see frogs chillin in there (hotboxing?) out of the sun.
great reply thank you so much for all the info!!
get a chicken
im currently trying to convince my wife to let me get some chickens right now lol
Oh yeah, also a barrier of hair also works. I bought some sheep hair from one of the organic gardening suppliers and it smelled funky, but it did work. More cheaply, if you have a bunch of dog hair, you can collect and make a mat around the base of the plants.
Nay Hay, try a bulb planter for your beer trap which does work.
Similar to Nay Hay’s response… I’ve had really good success with Wool Pellets. The only downside is this stuff gets expensive if you need to cover a large area. If you know someone with sheep or have somewhere local to try and get this stuff directly from the source, it’d be worth it. It breaks down naturally (takes about 3-4 months) and does a really good job against slugs.
The downside: Woodlouse / Pill Bugs / “Rollie Pollies” love this stuff… you might end up trading one problem for another, however I’d take pill bugs over slugs any day.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06WW9D3ZD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Good luck convincing the wife on getting chickens. I’ve lost that conversation a few times, but I keep making mention of it. One day…
Cheers!
Take a used sour cream or cottage cheese type of cup with a lid, cut 2-3 rectangular holes at your desired height on the cup, leave some room for the beer and too high for the slugs to climb out. Make them about 1-2 inches wide and as long as you want, just don’t decapitate the top you’ll need it for the lid. Dig a hole into your soil just deep enough to have the bottom cut of the holes sitting level with the soil or mulch to make it really easy for the slugs to get into. Fill the container up about 1/3-1/2 full from the cuts, pop the lid on and set it in the hole. If you’re worried about rain running into the cup set it with the holes a little higher but mound up some mulch or soil so as to create a type of ramp the slugs can use. I’ve had success with stale beer but a fresh popped can works better, best of luck.
And ducks do major damage on slugs if you can have a duck or two in the city (I grew up raising farm animals in LA lol). If you’re allowed em they might be worth a looking at, though they can be pretty messy.
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no thank you for all the help! update on the slugs. I planted more things in containers to move them around and trick the slugs. fuck beer traps!! I literally had slugs crawling over my fence from my neighbors yard to go for the beer and I still had slugs all over my plants. eggs shells worked for a day and I used massive amounts of egg shells. I kept some pots upside down and I have seen a few skinks in the area now. I hope they are helping. I still go out every night and manually remove them which really seems to be the only thing that is working.