# "Skipper soup": Included weeds, lawn mowings, kitchen waste & plenty of orange peel, mixed 50:50 with water. Was fermented 3 to 8 weeks until bubbled & smelled. Watered generously on ground - not over plants. Immediately killed slugs only, including keel slugs in ground. Applied around potatoes in August.
No, I haven't. I might have to try some of those soon.
My current strategy is to provide habitat for slender salamanders. I think the garlic preparation might harm them almost as much as the slugs (both breathe through their skin), and I'm skeptical about the dough.
While I don't think the mechanism of homeopathy has to do with the potentization or the choice of starting materials, I think the human attention needed to prepare & properly apply biodynamic preparations is probably the best medicine for most problems...for instance, you have to know where to find slugs during the day, and then you have to walk your fields, and after that it's a while before you would take any other, more disruptive action. I'm trying to work that way.
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"the qualities of these bacteria, like the heat of the sun, electricity, or the qualities of metals, are part of the storehouse of knowledge of all men. They are manifestations of the laws of nature, free to all men and reserved exclusively to none." SCOTUS, Funk Bros. Seed Co. v. Kale Inoculant Co.
I will try some of those, right now I use this product:
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So the question is, is Sluggo organic? Well, organic has two meanings. In the sense the chemist understands, the flour part of the material is an organic substance in that it was once a living thing (wheat), and the iron phosphate is an inorganic chemical compound. In the sense meant by the organic farming laws, Sluggo is not approved at this time as a pest management method for use by organic farmers.
I feel strongly that Sluggo will be approved for organic farmers, since its ingredients are not harmful to the environment or to creatures other than snails and slugs. In time, the active ingredient becomes a fertilizer, since plants need iron and phosphorus. For gardeners who have been using metaldehyde bait it is a far better choice, since Sluggo isn't toxic to pets, and is applied so thinly that pets aren't likely to even notice it. I suggest that noncommercial gardeners who consider themselves "organic" go ahead and use Sluggo now, assuming it will be approved.
I have small slugs and bigger snails here. There just isn't much damage at all. The only noticable is a few strawberries, which I wash off and eat anyways. I have lots of birds and garter snakes which eat the slugs. I have plenty of places for slugs to hide out and I do find them.
My grandparents on both sides used to just go out on a sluggy day and pick them up, collect them in a coffee can and throw it in the garbage(one could "rehome" them I guess). This was up in WA with the mutant slugs. That seemed to work pretty well.
Personally I think instead of all the work of spraying or laying out bait, it's better to use a "mechanical" means of control--either making the ground icky for them to slide on with pine needles or copper(coffee grounds will gum them up too), or letting slug predators do the work, or just going around picking them up or leaving things out slugs can hide in.
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Coffee did nothing. Put a bunch of slugs and snails in a blender then sprayed it on the plants and that did not seem to help either. Amazing amount of them this year but I'm also planting in bales of weeds and on weedy and wet and weedy plots. Sure could convert them into hundreds of duck eggs but with work I'm not around enough to look after animals.
they won't cross ash, especially fresh ash(think burning LYE, bwahaha!). Or copper does some weird electrical shock thing to them too. Ever put salt on them?
Personally I think slug bait/pesticide is a waste of time, no matter how organic it is. Addressing it through physical methods works better. Either with texture(ash, pine needles, coffee grounds), collection, predators(snakes, birds)or this one I just figured out---I do indeed have the ganourmous slugs here, I found one when I was clearing off a garden plot next to the woods. I don't have the big ones in my main garden because there is an at least 6 foot wide "no slug's land" strip around it of either shortcut grass or bare dirt--very dry. The big fat slug has to cross that and risk drying out before he gets to the lush garden. The main garden was situated in an open exposed area to beign with, so those big slugs wouldn't have been in that area. THe little slugs can hide under smaller things and yes they're in my main garden, but the snakes and birds help, and they don't do any significant damage anyways.
I'm sure slugs must have photosensitivity(why they like to come out at night). so making an exposed dry no slug's land around your garden would help, I would think. There are lots of snails here too, they stay to the forest also and don't cross that dry exposed border into my main garden.
It will be interesting to see how I do with my new garden that won't have that border.
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My Blog, Natural History and Forest Gardening www.dzonoquaswhistle.blogspot.com "Listen everybody, to what I gotta say, there's hope for tomorrow, if we wake up today!" Ted Nugent "Suck Marrow" Henry D Thoreau
Slugs don't seem to mind pine needles in my garden bed. Maybe I'm using the wrong variety.
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"the qualities of these bacteria, like the heat of the sun, electricity, or the qualities of metals, are part of the storehouse of knowledge of all men. They are manifestations of the laws of nature, free to all men and reserved exclusively to none." SCOTUS, Funk Bros. Seed Co. v. Kale Inoculant Co.
The pine trees I have have more of a sticky needle, not so smooth, they grab at stuff. But a slug moves on it's slime trail, if the pine needles are loosley fluffed, it makes it hard to make a slime trail--probably harder for smaller slugs than bigger ones.
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My Blog, Natural History and Forest Gardening www.dzonoquaswhistle.blogspot.com "Listen everybody, to what I gotta say, there's hope for tomorrow, if we wake up today!" Ted Nugent "Suck Marrow" Henry D Thoreau
I've used decollate (sp? snails and they work. We have three quarters of an acre in zone 10 on the California coast sandwiched between Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades. A Web search will bring up suppliers.
I would not introduce them to areas where they are not already found. They were introduced to the US sometime back in the mid 1880's --l Wikipedia has information on where they are presently found. Once they become established, they manage the garden snail population. The garden snails (weinberg schnecken) were introduced to the grape orchids in California in the hope that they would propagate and be available as a food source. They propagated all right, but evolved to a smaller variety. They are still edible, and a usefull source of protein for the carnivorous. Because of the prevalence and common use of poisonous snail bait, caution should be used in haresting snails in populated areas.
Decollate snails were introduced to manage the pest garden snails in the grape orchids. They are prevalent in California as far north as Fresno. Dunno about the Northwest, though. Our commitment to an examined approach and to do no harm is our guiding principle -- or is it principal ? Never could spell.
After reading "Sea Energy Agriculture", by Maynard Murray, I decided last fall to try spraying a little sea salt on my small 400 sq ft back yard. I put 1 tablespoon in a gallon of water and sprayed it on the ground as a fertilizer. I did it again this spring. I've had the fewest slugs since I've been at this location in Portland, Oregon and it's been the rainiest spring we've had in a long time. More recently I purchased some "sea solids" from a company (10 lbs for $25, shipped) for use as a foliar spray, adding 1 t / gallon and will use it maybe 5 times during the growing season. I'm kind of thinking of it as replacing the salmon that used to spawn and die in the streams, releasing all of the minerals they brought up from the ocean.
I have had copper work in protecting individual plants.
I have a roll of copper foil tape, which is use to shield electronics from interfearance, and I made a few rings out of it and placed it around some plants the slugs were hitting pretty hard. Once I picked off the little baby slugs that had been trapped in the ring, there hasn't been any new holes chewed in it.
I already had the copper tape from work, and the type I have is $50 for 18 yards. I did some poking around Amazon, and they have a 36 yard roll for about $11+S&H. Not sure how this one might hold up outside, but is is cheap enough to give it a try. http://www.amazon.com/JVCC-CFL-5CA-Copper-Conductive-Adhesive/dp/B000UZ8SJK
you could put the tape onto something else(like strips cut from plastic milk jugs) to make it more durable, or so you don't have to fold it over to hide the sticky.
I've heard of people using copper wire, but you need to string multiple strands, I think I've heard a larger continuous surface(like the tape etc) is more effective.
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My Blog, Natural History and Forest Gardening www.dzonoquaswhistle.blogspot.com "Listen everybody, to what I gotta say, there's hope for tomorrow, if we wake up today!" Ted Nugent "Suck Marrow" Henry D Thoreau
We're attempting Dahlias again this spring -- heretofore impossible due to slugs. When the first shoots show we've been covering them at night with upside down planting pots pressed into the soil. So far no damage--but darn labor intensive. Cascadians will remeber this as the slug spring of 2010. Local meteorologist reported the darkest solstice in 15 years. But sun has emerged today.
I'm not sure what will work but we put every toad we can find inside the garden fence. Toads are supposed to eat slugs.Not sure it's going to help but they won't poison my family in any way. We tried the beer trap thing....that just seemed to attract every slug to the garden Last year Dad brought me some wood ash from his woodstove to work into the soil, still had so many that they reduced broccoli leaves to the veins.The only thing that seemed to help was going out there, picking them off and putting them in a container of salt.Reduced the numbers anyway.
For small gardens: I have had excellent success with sluggo for organic gardens. It's a fertilizer cased in corn meal (I think) - so the slugs think it is supper yummy but then they die and fertilize the garden. Does not harm birds/snakes/pigs that eat dead slugs.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2010, 04:33:19 PM by paul wheaton »
Our weather was a bit dry this spring and we had just planted and transplanted a bunch of stuff that needed watering. Our only irrigation source is stored rainwater and the tanks were a bit low. So to conserve water we watered in the evening. BIG MISTAKE. The garden became a slug oasis. Everything around the garden was abnormally dry. We had inch-long slugs, tiny slugs, and everything in-between. Slugs started to strip all of the corn, some varieties of beans, potatoes, etc. We researched most of the above methods but didn't want to apply iron phosphide (Sluggo) since the garden is high in both iron and phosphorus. We tried diatomaceous earth until we used up a 5-gallon bucket. Still loads of damage. Then we thought about what we had plenty of: dry wood ashes.
We loaded up the Dustin' Mizer (hand cranked powder blower) and cranked a fine dust of ash on the plants in the evening before dark and in the morning before the sun was up too high. You could watch the slugs squirm, and an hour later they were just a pile of black "snot". Despite 3 times the normal rainfall this month the slugs are now few and far between. We've only used about 5 gallons of ash so the soil mineral balance has not been negatively affected. And the plants have shown no stress either. Good deal! Quick, cheap, and easy enough.
The corn is now almost shoulder high by the fourth of July (a projection of current growth rate), the beans look great and hopefully the potatoes will recover enough to give a good yield of spuds.
So the ash has not affected the soil in a negative way, do you think it will eventually be a problem if you keep doing it? or will the ash be neutralized by the sun or something?
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I just went out this morning to search for slugs and could no longer find any, so no, I don't think I'll have a problem. Besides, last year's soil tests showed that pH and calcium were getting slightly low, making it a good time to apply either wood ash or high-calcium lime again anyway.
Also, I forgot to mention that I sifted the ashes through a 12-mesh window screen so any cinders of charcoal wouldn't clog the 8-mesh screen in the Dustin' Mizer.
I'll have to partly eat my words on "no ill effects on plants". We saw a fresh batch of small slugs on our celery and celeriac that I hadn't dusted with ash previously. We got rid of the slugs but the next morning the celeriac stems all looked limp, so I lightly irrigated the bed to rinse off the ash. The nest day most of the stems were stiff and upright again, but I don't know if the watering actually made any difference.
So you might want to be careful with "salt-sensitive" plants like carrots, peas, radishes, beans, cukes, and rhubarb. But of all these, most of which I ashed, the only thing that really showed any negative effect was celeriac.
In the long term we're considering a fall "drench" of wormwood tea on the whole 3400 sq. ft. area of garden beds.
I place mason stepping stones around the garden. I go out at night with a flashlight, pick them up, put them on the mason step, wipe out with my shoe. Come back the next night, they are eating their buddy who died last night, kill him too. Keep on going. Works better in the wetter parts of the year because the dead slug stays juicy and fragrant as food for his buddies better the next night. John S PDX OR
I had success putting a nice ring of crushed egg shells around plants. Our spring was unusually wet and with the straw I use to mulch with, they were really bad this year.
Might be a bit time consuming for a very large garden, but if placed there when planting, they might help keep those plants from a setback.
You know the egg shells will be good for the soil and the worms like them too.
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On the border of Zones 5 & 6 on the last 2 acres of what was once a large farm. Flat, flat and more flat!
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Last year Dad brought me some wood ash from his woodstove to work into the soil, still had so many that they reduced broccoli leaves to the veins.The only thing that seemed to help was going out there, picking them off and putting them in a container of salt.Reduced the numbers anyway.
