I use coffeee & tea grounds, they work well for me.

You are trying to reduce the risk of slug infestation. Will this reduce the risk? Probably. Plenty of discussions in the organic forum about the efficacy (such as it is) of coffee grounds, and why.

Welcome to our new weather.

Dan

Sluggo or Escar-Go work great and are safe for animals and gardens.

I don't know much about the science, but there have been some questions raised about the safety of iron-phosphate slug control products such as Sluggo and Escar-Go.

Like I mentioned in the other thread, if you lay boards or flat bricks, stones or paving stones between the rows, slugs will collect underneath at night, and you can flip the boards in the day and pick them off with a tweezers and put into a jar of salty water or kerosene.

You could also place the slug bait under a wide flat board or rock, and it would not get rained in, though it might eventually dissolve. Some retaining wall blocks have big voids underneath, or you could use a half a concrete block with a cap made for the top, set on top of straw so the slugs can easily get underneath. Many solutions are possible, to make a covered, rainproof, baited haven that will stay damp and cool all day. Don't use a plastic bowl, for instance, as it would heat up in the sun.

The slugs vote "NO!"

Susan

I don't think people in drier climates quite appreciate what slugs and snails can do to a garden. It's not a case of a few holes in leaves. Snails can destroy completely a row of baby lettuces in one night. I am constanly torn between not wanting to use chemicals and not wanting to lose my entire crop of everything every year. Reluctantly I do use bait in my vegetable garden. My beds are strewn with the shells of the snails which get killed. I let them have their wicked way with the ornamentals. In real slug/snail country coffee, beer traps etc have no appreciable effect whatsoever. The silvery trails just waltz right over the coffee ground and head straight for the prize greens.

I too hate the slugs.

I know salt isn't garden friendly, but I have started putting salt on the wooden rails of my raised bed. It seems to be "working." I don't know if it's because my plants (the ones that are still standing) are getting larger and less appealing or if the slugs are encountering the salt moat and heading for greener pastures?

I have read that crushed eggshells sprinkled around the plants will help. I cannot speak to this from personal experience, though.

Just use Sluggo, WorryFree or Escar-Go and sprinkle it thinly. They are OMRI-certified for organic gardens.

No, they're not perfect, but they're a great improvement on the metaldehyde types (the great dog poisoner). But if you leave it in piles for the dog to eat, you could have problems. If you let your kids eat it with a spoon, you could have problems. If you use some basic common sense, you won't have any problems and you will reduce your slug/snail problem.

If you go into the garden on a misty day with a couple of milk cartons, you can accelerate the cleanup.

You can try beer, eggshells, ashes, salt, spears, machine guns, night hunting and flaming arrows, and you will hit some and miss more.

I live in the Slug Capital of the World, the Pacific Northwest. Before Sluggo (etc), I collected slugs by the half-gallon milk carton and never noticed a decrease in the population. Did you know they can live under your deck for two years without eating?

NOW I CAN GROW LETTUCE!

Sue

I also tried the crushed eggshells and yeast + water bait bowls for slugs. The yeast method does work to catch slugs (though maybe not enough to really diminish the population) but do *not* forget to empty a bowl on a hot day. There's nothing quite like the smell of dead slugs in a yeast/water bath. I found a couple last year a day late under squash leaves. Not pleasant.

Given this year's incredible moisture, I've bought Sluggo.

I had lots of slugs last year (sigh). They seemed especially attracted to collard greens, which worked pretty well as a sort of trap crop. But I also resigned myself to greens with holes, and filled quart jars with slugs hunted at night.

Thank you for all of your responses. They have been greatly appreciated. I think we will definately be trying some of the "non-chemical" approches as well. Of course I think everyone would like it better if we could just wave a magic wand and they would just be gone. But these buggers really reek some havoc.

If anyone knows if the coffee and tea grounds messes with the ph balance? That sounds like a really good remedy we drink both coffee and tea here. :) Thanks again for all the help!

Has anyone ever lined their beds with copper tape or wire? I was watching a youtube video where someone installed copper tape under the rims of his raised beds to deter the slugs from crossing it. He mentioned that he hadn't had any slug problems, but I'm not sure if that's due to the copper or something else.

These guys laugh at eggshells. Result of 1 minute check under a wall shrub.

{{gwi:37342}}

Come to think of it, can you see them with garlic butter?

Supposedly, toads, frogs, and snakes eat them. I've never been able to attract enough of those to my garden to make a dent in the slug population. A little pond might help.

I don't know how anyone can afford Sluggo and similar products. The cost of the bait quickly exceeds the value of the produce.

To be a bit more blunt about it, coffee grounds don't work. But a range of strategies like Sluggo, beer, boards, ducks etc works best IME.

Dan

I must disagree, IME, our yard was a slug heaven, after tilling close to 100lbs of UCGs into the soil during the early spring, all I see are an occasional snailor slug far from the veg beds, when I go out at night to check all I find are red wigglers, doing their thing on the surface soil.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Keep up with slug control this year & less slugs next year! It's a battle anytime it's not freezing weather, so for us in the PNW that's year round except for brief periods of cold. Don't give up gardening, but do patrols as mentioned above daily with seedlings & several times a week thereafter. Ammonia water spray (1 part ammonia to 5 parts water) has helped tremendously these past few years, to easily zap those tiny baby slugs with elephant appetites!

Corrine

Stopped using Sluggo et al for previously discussed reasons here.

Best "luck" I've had otherwise has involved:

1. Copper Tape (not completely effective, but it did help significantly)

2. Clearing out habitat -- specifically digging out narrow trenches adjacent to beds, where the slugs were retreating to after feeeding

3. Sprinkling d.e. in real problem areas, or areas where the slugs are already in the bed and migrating from plant to plant at night, etc... kind of a last resort due to re-application labor, instability of d.e. in moist climates, etc

4. Hand picking.

Beer traps, coffee grounds, eggshells, etc, never really worked for me.

I've found that my raised beds are easier to keep relatively slug and snail free just by running 1" of copper tape around the top edges. YMMV. And: its not cheap, but lasts a season or more depending on your climate.

Non-raised beds, and beds that abut edges (any structural foundation) where slugs and snails can retreat to, have been more problematic which led to digging the abutment edge out and sometimes lining it with small rocks and d.e. and salt. This was surprisingly effective in one particular case.

But I also noticed heavy usage of d.e. and salts in some edges also killed off or forced the retreat of beneficials such as spiders, so now I'm dealing with some other issues due to a lack of ground predators.

I'm all for diligent hand picking but its not practical for most of us. I try to get out there a day or so a week and do it thought, and it helps too.

I've had a lot of success this year with beer traps... simple empty cottage cheese container with "windows" cut about 2/3rds of the way up on the sides and top on to keep rain out. At first I would find at least 2 in each one at night or in the morning... sometimes they needed a little extra push to dive in. Seems the populations have died down since then as I don't find very many anymore. Either that or they don't like the skunky stuff that I've procrastinated about changing over the past 2 weeks.