What Organic Slug Control Can I Try, Besides Beer?
Sunday November 9, 2008
This question was posted by a Florida gardener, on the About Gardening Forum. We’re never going to be rid of slugs entirely, so this question pops up at least once a season. Although beer works fine for some people, the last time I tried it, my neighbor’s dog found it and chugged the entire saucer. Since I don’t want to be responsible for an underage dog drinking, I asked readers for their slug control suggestions. There’s a good variety of suggestions here. In particular, I’m intrigued by a new product from Neudorff called “Sluggo”. I believe it’s considered organic and is labeled safe to use near kids, pets and around edible plants, since it uses iron phosphate as its active ingredient, rather than Metaldehyde. Mike and Erica both recommended it. I’d love to hear from others who’ve tried it and use this form to share more suggestions about what works to control slugs in your gardens.
Photo: © Marie Iannotti (2008) licensed to About.com, Inc.
Comments
Sluggo does work great for those slimey slugs and is organic. I use Sluggo Plus which works not only on slugs and snails it also works great on nasty earwigs and cutworms. I have put it in my containter gardens for both slugs and earwigs. Sluggo Plus has a natural good bacteria in it called Spinosad.
Iron Phosphate is available from several sources including Sluggo, Bonide and Ortho. Sluggo Plus with spinosad which is also a low toxicity insect control offers good control.
It’s important though to realize that organic or not, these products are designed to kill a target pest. The low toxicity and natural (iron phosphate is not organic, it’s natural) nomenclature do not relieve the user of reading, understanding and following the label directions for these products.
Critical issue here is simple: “Organic is not the same thing as Safe!”
BD
I have heard of people using copper wire as a deterrent. I myself have never tried this, but I’ve heard this works. For instance, you could add some copper wire at the base of the stem or around the garden boxes. I’m sure you could get artistic with it.
I’ve used an organic, non-toxic product called DIATOMACEOUS EARTH. It comes in the form of pellets, the pellets are white chalk-like and is produced by the crushing of fossilized algae. I spread the pellets heavily, almost coating the ground. The slugs crawl over the pellets and it works as an abrasive to their body and eventually dries them out.
I agree with the Bug Doc—Don’t kill the bugs.
We need the bad bugs for the good bugs to eat. Learn to live with them and put a little salt in a spray bottle and add water. Spray where you don’t want them. Rarely will they cross over a salt water line.
If you have chickens running around i dont want them to eat any poison pellets
Copper does work on slugs. It creates an electrical reaction with the slug, in plain English, it shocks him. They don’t like to be shocked anymore than we do, so they won’t cross the copper.
Salt water and rubbing alcohol are two other ways to get rid of slugs. They congeal a slug’s slime coat so he crawls right out of his slime trail. Dead slug.
(A small note on my comment. I am not being sexist by using the words “he” and “his”. It has just been my experience that the word “slug” has always been used to describe some men, not women.)
I’m not offended, but the Slug Anti-Defamation League (SAD) may be in touch with you soon.
(I just realized that if there really were such a league, we’d all be in a lot of trouble.)
you can use any piece of board. get it wet and place it in the garden for one week. After a week turn over the board and scrap all of the slugs into a 5 gallon bucket. and repeat as needed. No chemicals in my garden.