Garden slugs make their presence known.

May Lotito wrote: Also if you want to kill slugs faster, grab a  pair of scissors or even better, thread snips and just cut the slugs in half.

Jay Angler wrote:

May Lotito wrote: Also if you want to kill slugs faster, grab a  pair of scissors or even better, thread snips and just cut the slugs in half.

Uggghhh... slug slime on my thread snips, No, please, NOOOOOOO.....

OK, maybe it's just the Pacific Wet Coast slug slime, but it does *not* come off easily. Not from hands, and definitely not from wool socks.

Rich Rayburn wrote:

Jay Angler wrote:

May Lotito wrote: Also if you want to kill slugs faster, grab a  pair of scissors or even better, thread snips and just cut the slugs in half.

Uggghhh... slug slime on my thread snips, No, please, NOOOOOOO.....

OK, maybe it's just the Pacific Wet Coast slug slime, but it does *not* come off easily. Not from hands, and definitely not from wool socks.

Jay, "Midwest slime slug"is similarly difficult to get off your hands, plain water does not work. I usually end up rubbing my hands in grass or some soil then rinse to get it off.
Also the rat lung disease that Su Ba mentioned was kind of disturbing apparently it can cause neurological problems., And it is found in the lower 48, though uncommon, when found it is mostly in the south from what I read.

Jay Angler wrote:Before I moved to the wet coast, I used beer traps effectively,

This was going to be my suggestion. (See above)

Salt works extremely well, but the aftermath for your garden isn't exactly desirable.

The copper is a novel idea, which I like, but if your garden is very big, and the slugs are tiny comparatively. You won't be able to effectively remove them from inside the boundary without employing a 2nd control measure, which I would employ by getting them "inebriated" (See above)

Mark Reynolds wrote:I'm also wondering......anyone have input here?....Diatomaceous earth barrier/line... YUP! This is effective in control as well!

Jay Angler wrote : My issue is that diatomaceous earth (DE) kills many types of insects. Our insects are seriously in decline which is hurting all the other creatures that depend on them as a food source. [/quote wrote:
Jay, your perspective gets a round of applause! 👏👏👏.
Viewing any action in the context of the total environment is probably the most important thing that we ALL  can and should do to minimize negative impacts of the so-called unintended consequences of an action!

Anne Miller wrote:I have never had slugs but have always heard that salt kills them.  Is this not true?

Rich Rayburn wrote:Thea, I'm going to have to disagree with the hypothesis that slugs and bugs only eat sick plants.
All of the plants that the slugs in my garden are eating were healthy until the slugs got to them, even then many of them persevered and are still producing, after extensive slug removal.
I did a little checking and found that indeed garden slugs have a very diverse diet that even includes mowing off your seedlings before they can even get a chance.
No hard feelings I was just feeling a little inadequate as a gardener if all my plants were that sick. LoL.

Su Ba wrote:My own observations agree with Rich. While unhealthy or struggling plants sometimes appear more susceptible to pests and diseases, just being healthy and robust isn’t enough to fend off problems. I often see it written (mostly on social media but also in some gardening books whose authors have questionable gardening experience) that having healthy robust plants is enough for success. Sorry, but that is untrue. In fact, overly lush plants are sometimes actually more susceptible to certain attacks. I find that I am more apt to have aphid and/or mealy bug problems on overly lush greens. Thus I need to take care not to feed too much nitrogen to my Asian greens.

In my own beds, slugs seem to actually prefer the lush plants over the struggling neglected ones. And quite honestly, iron phosphate has been the only help to control them adequately. I’m simply not up to spending 2 hours every evening hand picking slugs.

Su Ba wrote:My own observations agree with Rich. While unhealthy or struggling plants sometimes appear more susceptible to pests and diseases, just being healthy and robust isn’t enough to fend off problems. I often see it written (mostly on social media but also in some gardening books whose authors have questionable gardening experience) that having healthy robust plants is enough for success. Sorry, but that is untrue. In fact, overly lush plants are sometimes actually more susceptible to certain attacks. I find that I am more apt to have aphid and/or mealy bug problems on overly lush greens. Thus I need to take care not to feed too much nitrogen to my Asian greens.

In my own beds, slugs seem to actually prefer the lush plants over the struggling neglected ones. And quite honestly, iron phosphate has been the only help to control them adequately. I’m simply not up to spending 2 hours every evening hand picking slugs.

Ra Kenworth wrote:... I found I had a slug clinging to the bottom of my hair when I was in bed and the only solution was to cut a few inches off.

Jay Angler wrote:

Ra Kenworth wrote:... I found I had a slug clinging to the bottom of my hair when I was in bed and the only solution was to cut a few inches off.

Cutting a few inches off was likely the best approach. I once stepped out  onto the front porch in my wool socks, and unfortunately stepped right on a large, wet coast slug. It took about 5 tries to get the slug slime off the wool sufficiently that I could still use the sock.

Su Ba wrote: overly lush plants are sometimes actually more susceptible to certain attacks

Thea Morales wrote: My grandchildren dive in, come out with slugs, and use them to fish with

Thea Morales wrote: My grandchildren dive in, come out with slugs, and use them to fish with

E Sager wrote:We have a three alert SOP for dealing with slugs.

First level. We have success using raw wool as mulch for a slug deterrent. We've use waste wool from shearing, or the wool pellet fertilizer we make here on the farm. When used as mulch on the soil surface, wool pellets will expand in size. Slugs in our neck of the woods, avoid it. If you catch early signs of slug damage, you can get ahead of an infestation with wool mulch. I did a test surrounding a big slug with a little wool fence. It eventually crossed over it because it had to, but it took it a long while.

Level Two. If a plot gets infested before we can get wool mulch on the surface, we use these slug traps from Amazon that work pretty good.

Code Red. If it's a slug apocalypse we bring out the heavy artillery. Garden Viking's slug solution is the nuclear option when you positively, absolutely have to kill every last slug in the garden.