completely ignorant here- i take it the iron phosphate is non toxic for people & pets? what about other insects? what about for food crops? i have been mulching more each year and am convinced it makes a huge difference, so i will probably start to see more slug damage, too. fortunately, we do have a plethora of toads. they breed back in the swamp in the easement and move up. they seem to help a lot. tam

Those slug baits are certified organic...safe around other animals, insects, you, food crops, etc. They've been on the market and in the garden centers for many years. 'Slug-go' was one of the first ones!

It breaks down into a mild fertilizer, after being rained on at length...

I've been using Sluggo for years and have been very happy with it. I've even given it as a Christmas gift, but only to other gardeners. Haven't ever seen it at the big boxes, but Durham Garden Center carries it.

Thanks to this thread, Sluggo just got another customer! I have tomatoes & bell peppers in earthboxes and the slugs were on them in full force this year. A little tricky to use w/the earthboxes (they're not flat surfaces, but mounded), so I first lightly sprayed the plastic covers w/water to help the pellets stick, sprinkled on Sluggo and into the openings where the plants come out ..... this morning found a number of dead slug diners amongst the pellets! Yea!

Btw, I found Sluggo at Ace Hardware. My peppers & tomatoes thank y'all for the advice!

I found Ortho "ecosense brand" at Lowe's the other day: 1% iron phosphate. It does say on the container "not intended to imply environmental safety," but I think that's probably because of possibility of phosphates running off into the water. I use sparingly and far from any pavement.

k.

Wish we had hedgehogs here in the USA. From what I read they are voracious killers/eaters of slugs.

I have two free permanent and thorough slug deterrent ideas. These would be used by people who don't have small children playing in the beds and who always wear gloves when digging. #1.Broken glass. Where do I get it? Our recycler stopped taking glass a few years ago. So this is how I recycle it. I take a tall, empty, tin popcorn can (the kind people give you at Christmas). Put a couple glass jars inside. Wearing long pants and goggles I get my sledge hammer. With the head down I pull the hammer handle up waist high and let it fall into the can as many times as it takes to get the glass into small pieces. I pour the glass shards into an ice cream bucket with a handle and take them around to my Hostas and sprinkle then at the base. No slug can crawl across broken glass. #2. Every time I open a can of tuna, etc. I rinse the lid and save it. With leather gloves on I push the lids, vertically, half way into the soft ground under a Hosta or slug tender plant. Slugs can't climb over the sharp edges. I have a Hosta bed that I put in 9 years ago and used can lids around every baby Hosta. Have not had a single hole in a leaf in all those years. This fall I will be lining a set of steps on a slope with Hostas on both sides. So I am saving all my glass jars and can lids so I'll be ready. Has anyone else tried this method?
Tina

Whoa,Tina! You must have some heavy duty gloves!! It sounds too scary for me.

I've heard hair cuttings sprinkled around will do the same thing, and I used to use them when I cut my son's hair myself. It seemed to do the job pretty well.

Man we have been eaten ALIVE by slugs this year - I've never seen the like of it. Had to pull up all my brussels sprouts, broccoli and cabbage plants b/c they were infested.

I found one of those slug baits in the 'organic' section at Lowes. It's supposed to attract them, and then make them not WANT to eat...and then they starve to death. Wife said, "How come if they can make SLUGS not want to eat, they can't do the same for people?"

Anyway, it works. I have seen very few slugs since I sprinkled that stuff around. :)

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.