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I am currently developing an anti snail/slug pot/planter. Any information you have regarding what works best for you would be greatly appreciated. Copper, pellets, sharp gravel etc? Obviously if anyone provides enough info which leads to the final product will recieve more pots then they will ever need. The pots we are currently testing are around 94% effective. This is not good enough! We all know what 1 slug can do! We are aiming for 100% before our product is available. As mentioned before, any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Iron is a dietary necessity for humans and we add rock phosphate to our gardens to support plants and microorganisms. Iron phosphate is safe for gardens up to the day of harvest. It needs to be re-applied every 2 to 3 weeks for maximum protection.
The product you buy will come as granuls that need to be cast where you want protection. Maximum protection comes after one to two days. 99% of the commercial product is inert ingredients.
The best way to remove slugs from your garden is to get one of those small yellow margarine tubs and put beer in it. Put it under your hosta and the next morning it will be full of slugs. Best of all you can drink what ever beer you don't use. You don't need to full the tub. Half way will do. Try it, you'll like it.
Most slugs prefer micro breweries and, like civilized creatures, prefer to drink it from a glass. Stouts are good. Be sure to put it by your front gate or on your porch for maximum effectiveness. Where do you live again, exactly? A google map would help the slugs to find their way to your trap.
Billy wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@c-61-68-245-199.per.conne ct.net.au:
Billy, do you brew? we made an exceptional batch of Scarborough Faire a few weeks ago.... too bad you're on the wrong coast ;) we currently have Maple Ale (seasonal, made with sap not syrup), Scarborough Faire (unhopped, preserved with herbs) & two pale ales. there's two batches of some kind fermenting in the dining room, but i wasn't here when T brewed them. i think one is a Barley Wine though. it's about time to brew up the Spruce beers as well...
No. Made some mead once but I don't brew. I may have to rethink that. Brewing is far more complicated than winemaking. Grapes have acidity to fight back the micro-critter beer doesn't and caution to the point of neurosis is beneficial for a brewer. Then there is the malting and the roasting. I've never felt comfortable not being in charge of all the parameters of a project. Lastly, to control the dextrins, the mouth feel, multiple temps for varying times are needed and from this I know from nothing. One bit of information I did picked up along the way, if you are just interested in the liberating effects of ethanol, is that nothing ferments faster than pineapple juice;-)
I note you wisely don't repeat the false gardeners' "wisdom" that bear kills slugs. Unless deep enough they crawl right back out so that they MIGHT drown, beer doesn't kill slugs. But FRESH beer (they don't like it flat) is the ideal bait to trap them alive (potentially the alcohol content COULD kill slugs but it evaporates out of the beer in a matter of minutes, so essentially they're wading into safe stuff).
If you have no use for a lot of drunken live slugs, you have to personally take them out of the beer traps to kill them. They're edible by the way, you can find cleaning instructions several places on-line. Mash 'em and mix 'em with muffin mix, you'll get a day's worth of protein and you'll shit pretty. It's the sort of recipe that makes me sad to be a vegetarian. Slug muffins, mmmmmm.
Here's my article on iron phosphate and slugs:
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the myth coffee grounds kill slugs:
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repost of rec.gardens commentary on slugs and beer:
Near-beer also works as a good attractant, though without the alcohol content it is all the more important that the trap be one they cannot reach themselves out of. STALE near-beer let alone stale beer does not attract them; the Univ. of Colorado study said it worked only one full day & beer had to be changed every other day to keep working, but in Univ of Ohio study they changed the bait only once a week (though they were not killing the slugs, they were taking population measurements).
The study at the Universitiy of Colorado whimsically discovered that slugs dislike some beers & just won't pay attention them, but rather liked Michelob & Budweiser, & were totally enamored of Kingsbury Malt (which is not alcoholic & did not kill many slugs, but the Colorado study used professional traps deep enough to drown whatever climbed in). The Universitiy of Ohio study wasn't so much to test control measures but to take population & size/age & species statistics for a given area. A slug hide-habitat was set over a sunken container of beer as the bait, & changed weekly. The slugs were not killed. They accumulated in the habitat above the beer where they were counted, size & ages recorded, & species identified, then discarded. The traps did not kill many of the slugs that hid comfortably in the habitats after being attracted by the beer. In this study beer was found to be a mediocre attractant overall, because population estimates based on number of egg masses located was far greater than could be shown with beer-traps.
But another study done inside greenouses found the attractant-rate of beer to be very high in comparison to metaldhyde-based baits (unfortunately they didn't compare to Slugo or EscarGo which is safer stuff). The study was for four days only, performed in a series of greenhouses by the Entymology Society of America, & they caught 300 slugs with beer but only 28 with metaldehyde bait. The Entymology Society did use the relatively ineffective shallow pans flush with the ground.
Other findings from the whimsical Colorado study:
Slugs don't like flat beer at all, they want it fresh. Slugs don't like Rainier Beer, Strohs, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Coors, or Millers. Anyone who likes these beers lacks even the good sense of a slug. Anheiser-Busch beers were across the board better liked, inducing one soul to suggest a new brand, Slugweiser; but nothing equalled non-alcoholic Kingsbury Malt in slug appeal. Slugs don't like wine. Gallo Wine was slightly more appealing than plain water, but not by much.
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