Typically, they die by dessication (drying) or drowning. Place them in a bucket of water that has a squirt of jet-dry or baby shampoo. Both of these are surfactants which make the water "wetter" and help them die quicker. Or, place them into a bucket with some damp-rid (dessicant) which will suck all their moisture out and dry them up into little erasure crumblings. Either way, it'll kill them...although when you dry them out it tends to take longer because anything that gets them wet in the following 48 hours could resurrect the little buggers.

After that, compost them at will. Their shell is make of keratin, same stuff as your nails so it will take ages to decompose but is high in trace minerals so it's not a bad thing...

You could drown them in beer. They'll die happy, and the beer will go well in the compost, too! :)

I vote for the "drown them in beer" option.

I have a wicked problem with slugs and those little *%$#@'s just LOVE beer! After they finish their happy hour, I just bury the beer and dead slugs into the compost!

Best Wishes,

PJ

Hey, drink the beer and sprinkle salt on the snails and slugs. Cheaper that way and not nearly as messy. I use Sluggo once or twice a year and that stops them from coming back.

Salt / Desiccants are very effective so long as they don't get any form of moisture on them for the next 48 hours. I threw out a "safe for pets" snail killer once and they all turned into little shriveled erasure pellets... until the "darling wifey" went out and did me a favor by watering the lawn.

On a kind of morbid/gross note, it is kind of cool to think that they survive that kind of thing. I imagine the human equivalent would be pouring a gallon of water on a mummy and watching it come back to life... LOL!

Well, I think I'll throw them in cheap beer to which I might add a bit of shampoo. They'll die drunk & happy, I hope. I do appreciate knowing what their shell is made of, arjo reich.

Thanks, everybody!

redthistle:

I don't think you'll need the shampoo, and I'm not sure what that might do to a compost pile. Slugs go insane for beer! They end up falling in and drowning.

Just don't put the traps in the garden, or you'll only bring more of the little nasties into your garden. I use old tuna fish cans that I bury flush into the ground outside of my garden. Just remember to refill them when it rains...

Good luck!

PJ

A friend of mine heard about the beer method of killing slugs, so she set out cat food cans buried so the rim was flush with the ground and filled them with beer. Then she forgot about them for a few days. When she remembered to look, the cans were still there, but they were empty of both beer and slugs. Mystified, she refilled the cans with beer. That night, she had to get up to let the cat in, and she saw a family of skunks in the garden, happily sucking up the beer with the slugs. Beer and hors d'oeuvre!

My friend also sets out hummingbird feeders, but that same summer she had a problem with ants crawling up the tree trunks and out onto the limbs, down the cord to the feeders and crawling all over them. She got out more empty cat food cans and dumped the old sugar/water into them from the feeders. She noticed that many ants found the sugar water and crawled in, with many drowning. Once again, the skunks came to visit, tipping over the cans and eating the contents. Ooooo! Dessert, with a touch of spice!

In summer, she found several nests of ground-nesting yellowjackets. So she poured some cheap dollar-store pancake syrup on top of the nests at dusk. Sure enough, her little black and white scavengers came through, attracted to the syrup and discovered the yellowjacket nests (they love yellowjackets), and they ripped up the nests and ate the contents. Sweet, spicy and crunchy!

Mother Nature DID have a plan!

Sue

Haha! That's a great story Sue!

Great story, Belgian Pup. You guys have nice garden stories. Mine is a horror story related to bad neighbors who were selling drugs out of their house.

I paid attention as I was out gardening and I know what I saw. Did you know people smoke pot in their cars with their little babies sitting in car seats? Dang! This went on for months and months. Finally, I called the police. They said there wasn't enough probable cause. I offered them to set up in my upstairs to watch. They said no.

Finally, about a year later, the police busted the place. I learned later that the police knew what was going on; they were just waiting for the Kansas City dealers to show up. It was a substantial bust with lots of drugs found in the house and no tax stamp. Imagine that.

Here's the kicker. The lady of the house accused me of calling the police. Here's how she paid me back: She threw buckets of broken glass over the fence into my garden. I tried to pick up most of it, but here it is almost 8 years later and I'm still finding pieces of glass. I have to use leather gloves when I work out there. The good news is she was arrested for assault. Their house was eventually confiscated just like they confiscate cars of dealers. It has stayed empty for years until very recently when a local attorney bought, fixed it up and sold it. I hope these people are nice.

I use slug traps, Sluggo, and a small squirt bottle with ammonia for slug control. I find that if I am good about going out for a couple of weeks after dark and squirting all the slugs I see, that it makes a world of difference. The traps and Sluggo take care of the remaining slugs. I went from having huge numbers of them to a situation where I have to look hard to find them. Ammonia is great for slugs and snails. When you spray them, the ammonia sucks the moisture out of their bodies right away, and they turn into a little pool of stuff, never to return. I like the ammonia also because I have nothing to pick up. The remains are washed away quickly, fertilizing the soil as they go.
Renais

For those who are new to Sluggo and the other non-toxic iron phosphate snail/slug baits, be aware that the components break down into natural soil nutrients, iron and potassium. They can be used in certified organic farms.

But be sure that the main ingredient is "iron phosphate" or "ferric phosphate" (same thing, different name).

Sue

Collect as many as you can and put them in an old bucket. Then smash them up with a heavy implement into a liquidy paste. You can add fresh plant material if you want. Then place the deep in the compost pile.

place them