I finally caught the culprits in the act of eating my veggies and habaneros! DIEEEEEEEEEEEE slime!
Besides picking them off the plants at night while juggling a flashlight, I've read of various methods, organic and non-organic, to get rid of the slimey pests. I don't want any birds to accidently ingest something and die, so what can I use that won't kill the birds, but will do all manner of evil to the slugs?
Iron phosphate baits?available under many trade names including Sluggo and Escar-Go?have the advantage of being safe for use around children, domestic animals, birds, fish, and other wildlife, making them a good choice for an integrated pest management program in your garden. Ingesting even small amounts of the bait will cause snails and slugs to stop feeding, although it can take several days for the snails to die. You can scatter the bait on lawns or on the soil around any vegetable, ornamental, or fruit tree that needs protection. Iron phosphate baits can be more effective against snails than slugs overall and more effective than metaldehyde during periods of higher humidity. Snails and slugs tend to hide before they die, so you won¹t see scattered empty shells or dead snails and slugs as you would if treating them with metaldehyde.
Home Despot has an in house brand that is/was cheaper than Sluggo.
A saucer of beer. Or a bowl of diluted Vegemite or Marmite or Promite (but that advice only applies if you live in a place where yeast spreads are understood and appreciated).
I read that somewhere, too, so I bought some. Yesterday, I mixed a spray solution of 4T Epsom salts + 2T of unsulphured molasses + 1oz of fish emulsion fertilizer + about 4T composted ckn poop tea and filled the
30oz hand sprayer with that and the rest was captured rain water. So, I sprayed all of my peppers, cucumbers, & tomatoes with it and had about
1/3 of it left. Thirty minutes later it rained and washed it all off, so when it stopped raining, I emptied the rest and re-sprayed everything again. It didn't rain again this time. I took a look at the plants today and they haven't turned brown or died, so I guess it's doing it's job. They even look greener today.
Plants prefer pure H2O so no proof there, the long haul tells the tale.
I don't know if it works or not but tomatoes and peppers along with other stuff goes in at the end of the month and the those two are highly recommended for liking Epson salts. So I intend to give it a go here in SW Pennsylvania, USA.
My son, who couldn't wait to plant, texted me earlier (lives next door in the state of Ohio) lamenting the fact that a freeze is expected there tonight. I could only tell him that they sell plastic drop cloths by the roll. --- LOL
We have many wild roses that despite my best attempts at mutilation keep up the faith year after year so I will probably try the solution on them as well.
The scallions are just coming up and looking particularly tasty ... must resist ...
My mother had the worst slug infestation last year. I'd go out at night & smash several dozen on the sidewalk. Within mere minutes more were out there eating their fallen brethren. Smash & repeat. Sluggo-type bait for the rest.
In a late night rampage of me saving my cucumbers from the slimey devils I ended up actually touching one with my fingers. EWWWWWWWWWWWW! I can't stand that slime on my fingers. Is there an easier way to get that slime off your fingers?
It's kinda nasty, but will come off with scrubbing. Try a pumice soap.
Or: Disposable gloves, or non-disposable gloves that you store very carefully (no point in them if you get slime on the inside), after scrubbing up as much as possible.
For moderate infestations I tend to scrape into a cup of something (ammonia solution, lately) and for the big ones, just deal with the EWWW and scrub up afterwards. Gloves are more fuss than I want to deal with.
I did experiment with spraying ammonia solution on them (go out at night when you would pick and look for them to spray, not any sort of "spray everything" approach) last year, though I found that my slugs seemed not to mind some of the more dilute solutions that various places claimed killed 'em dead. I ramped up until I got convincing mortality, and did not appear to damage the plants. I don't recall exactly how far that was
- perhaps 1 part household ammonia to 3 parts water (having started at perhaps 1:20 which appeared to be a refreshing tonic, rather than death to slugs.) Main advantage is it's a lot faster than picking when you have lots of small ones (and may finish off the ones you can't hardly see to pick.) Downside would be if it burned your plants, and whatever collateral damage it my be doing to beneficials. Thus, the cup of it rather than spraying, unless slug-ma-geddon happens again. Iron phosphate is probably a better solution to slug-ma-geddon, for that matter, just not one I've tried here yet.
A cup of salt or salt solution also works, but then you have salty-slug-mess to dispose of, and salt is rather more dire for plant growth than ammonia. A cup of ammonia slug mess can be dumped in the compost pile, where it will not help the compost a bit for a while, but will eventually be sorted out by the rest of the pile.
I've watched slugs go into and then out of saucers of beer, so I stopped putting them out. Some do die, but evidently only the ones who won't leave the bar.
Trap boards (just boards or tiles laid flat on the ground) work very well to make collecting some part of the population quick and simple. If you have birds, just collect and dump and then watch the beak-wiping antics begin (my chickens would happily eat slugs, but clearly did not enjoy the slimy beak.)
The dream of the birds harvesting the slugs themselves foundered on the collateral damage to the plants. Supposedly ducklings of a certain age are better than chickens at this, but I'm not a big fan of domestic ducks. A sibling does the bird-moat-method - a bird run all around the garden that gastropods (and other tasty bird food) have to cross, but of course the birds are not out feeding at night when the gastropods are.
I bought some Iron phosphate for getting rid of them and it worked for the ones who ate it, but other slugs just went straight for my cukes. (the sorry @!#@$@!)
Chemicals? How uncaring and environmentally unfriendly. Probably adds to Global warming as well! Killing all chemists would probably be a good start to saving the planet.
I'd suggest a nice lawn chair by the garden and a .45 government model. They move pretty slow so it gives you lots of time to aim and pick them off.
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