The main advantages with Sluggo are that it eventually reduces the number of slugs and you don't have to use it heavily, a thin scattering works just fine. But if you want to use the old sourdought starter or beer, try using a container where it's easier for them to get in than to get out. Maybe a 2-liter soda bottle, buried to the neck, with enough water in it that they drown?

I haven't tried the Iron phosphate yet but when I heard about the coffee for slugs,I thought good deal. When I didn't get the expected results, I took a couple slugs and put them into a bucket of grounds. If you are patient enuff to try it, you can watch them crawl right out with no adverse affect. I thought maybe like sand it would deter them. I use a 10% ammonia/water spray for slugs. If they don't loose their grip and fall right off (or melt), add more ammonia. Using scissors is also effective. I always keep a pair right in the garden. The down side is you have to go out at night to find them, spray directly on them. But it works. Also keeping weeds down and grass (the perennial invasive weed) from growing right up to the beds helps to keep slugs down. I have watched them march from the grassy areas right toward the garden. Removing rocks, boards, and other hiding places also helps. But if you can't/won't go out at night you can lay down boards for the slugs to hide, then go spray them during the day. The up side is you don't have to touch the slugs and you may also find out what other insects are also feeding at night. I also use crushed egg shells around young seedlings to deter slug traffic. Nothing is 100% but it does seem to slow them down until it rains. Then more egg shells ;-) Good Luck, Gumby_CT

Kristy thank you. Now I have a name for that pesty little bug. I think they all migrated up the hill rofl. Karyn I think even the animals do not know what is going on this year and are doing things that are not normal. Very beautiful blossom. There are so many holes everywhere this year , that I just look beyond them now. Accept it as is and just see the beauty. The cooler nights sure help in the brugs setting new buds. This time I hope that the Lemon Maringue...hope I spelled it right...my mind is not on brugs right now really....since I should be cleaning lol......Anyways LM has several buds. One is in the process of opening and I hope I get lucky too and the blossom will develope as nicely as yours. If it does I don't even mind a few holes.

After years of combat engagement I have arrived at a point in my life where I have realised that slugs respond to nothing less than the an aggressive response to their aggressive responses. Though a scientifific phosphate oriented approach may have its merits,I doubt its long or short, or for that matter, its medium effects on long term eradication of slug infestation. Humane methods of slug eradication have been applauded by the UN and other humaninanitarian charities around the global world but I have long been quietly lobbying for a more effective,violent and decisive method of countering the devastating impact of the little slimy buggers that are wreaking havoc on vegetable patches around the known globe. I believe that history will absolve me, and like the blokes who dripped the H bomb on China in the 1930's,not many people will know my name but many people will know about what I've done to slugs. Regarding the H bomb, did you know that Kendo Nagasaki was NOT from Nagasaki? For that matter, Big Daddy was NOT a Daddy. He never sired any children but despite being called Shirley in real life, he was a Normal and DID have a wife. My first brutal encounter with the common garden slug left me traumatised and dedicated to leading a life long struggle against tyranny. Have you heard of Kev? He's about 7ft 6 and looks a bit like Will Smith on steroids, lives in Birkbett and is well known for doing an insurgent dogs egg in Louise Flowers garden after drinking 5 cans of breaker one night in the late 1980s. Well, one night, me and kev were setting off to Adega (it was 50 pence a pint night)dressed in our finest clobber when we confronted by a massive, no, a really big slug on Kev's drive. We literally froze with the sight of the beast. Kev shrieked "Go and get Dinah!!" Have you heard of Dinah? She was a Staffordshire Bull Buggering Terrier from the Depths of the Bruning Furnace of Beelzebubs Burning Buttocks!! (Bentley near Doncaster) Frozen quite literally with fear, I panicked and instead took the life affirming decision to quite literally "Drop the Brick". Not in my underpants as I actually wanted, but quite literally I basically picked up the nearest brick i could find near to me and without further delay..dropped it on the slugs head. If I described the ensuing scene you'd be shocked and impressed but I can't because it's a bit scary. The worst bit was that the slugs shattered remnants were blatted all ove me and Kev's best Keks!! The eery thing is we never saw a slug in that exact spot ever ever again. For me that said alot. One of the thiongs it said was "No Slug shall ever dare to return hither lest it shall be bricked and devastated by me and Kev!!" and I think that's enough to say about that. Putting it simply, you can willy willy wish wash all over t' place mucking about with phosphate this and saxa salt that. the point is..if you really want to do a Slug, nowt works as well as a brick or home made flame flower made by a can of Pledge!! Unless of course you actually ARE from Doncaster, in which case your preference might be to prolong the spectacle of pain and employ a couple of Patterdales to devour our hated slimy pesticles. Thanks for listening.