Comments on: I’ve Got Slugs in My Beer!

By: Compost Guy

Compost Guy — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:58:58 +0000

Thanks for all the great ideas everyone!
Someone sent me an email recommending ferric phosphate (likely the active ingredient in those pellets, JerseyGreen) – it is apparently eco-friendly (approved by organic ag industry), and adds some fertilizer value as well. The stuff apparently causes slugs/snails to stop feeding and eventually starve.
I almost grabbed some at the store recently, but the astronomical price held me back. I may still get some though, since my slug population is off the charts.

By: JerseyGreen

JerseyGreen — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:18:37 +0000

I had the same view of slugs, basically the bounty could be shared. I used beer traps several times but recently it got a bit excessive. I spoke to a guy at the nursery and he said the beer trap is good to use if you want to figure out how big of a problem you have but its not a long term solution.
He sold me an organic product, pellets that slugs either eat then take bakc and die or dont like the smell of and stay away. So far this is a superior solution to beer traps and it last longer even with all the rain.

By: Mary Jackson

Mary Jackson — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:27:58 +0000

If you can have them a couple of chickens would be of geat help. Or even Muscovy ducks. They’re pretty quiet.

By: DSF

DSF — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:03:25 +0000

Safest solution is to make the environment less inviting; switching from overhead to below-soil-surface irrigation helps a lot, since snails and especially slugs won’t stay where the surface is dry. But if that’s not an option, or to save vulnerable plants while you’re working on that, copper foil barriers work very well.

Beer is a great option, being bait and killer in one; I keep meaning to try EM as snail-bait, and I’ve read that molasses, yeast, and water can be fermented together to use that way, if you’d rather drink your beer. Other baits work better the less inviting the overall area is for the things, so in an area I’d switched to clay pot irrigation, I found that I could lure the remaining snails just by laying a water-soaked wooden board on the soil overnight.

If you’d like to raid your compostables, eggshells are supposed to work pretty well against some sorts of slugs (though not the ones we grow in Texas, from what I can see!) broken in large bits so as to have lots of sharp edges and mixed with UCG. And the rinds of overripe cantaloupes and muskmelons, flesh-side to soil but propped up so the mollusks can get underneath, draw them in and leave them alive, in case you were thinking of starting a helifarm to go with your wormeries.

DSF
http://bokashislope.blogspot.com
…slave to the bucket(s)

By: Natalia

Natalia — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:39:18 +0000

My experience with the beer trap is that not all the slugs actually fall into it and some even manage to escape after falling in. I check my traps an hour or two after sun set. The trap walls are black with slugs!!! Lots of big ones too. Grab a flashlight and harvest them. You don’t have to change the beer trap daily either, it tends to work for about 5 days.