Slugs and snails

[lumierefrere]

This is the 3rd year for my snail infestation. I have the Sluggo which is ok but you'd need it in truckloads. I got a bag of DE, I can't see that it's done anything yet. I spray them with Murphy's Oil Soap and that's so satisfying, makes them shrivel up right away.

What I've observed in my many hours of doing combat with these things is that they know exactly where the garden is. They're all headed in that direction. I don't find them moving away from the garden no matter where they are in the yard.

This seems remarkable to me so I remarked on it.

Barb

[dice]

Some kinds of box turtles will eat slugs.
Maybe they would eat snails, too.

I was wondering if mixing iron phosphate
and yeast with potter's clay and making
long ropy strings to lay out on the edge
of a garden bed or mulch would work.
At $50/lb (last time I checked) for iron
phosphate I haven't tried it yet.

[joeone1039]

Well I had a big problem last year with slugs, I used sluggo and DE with no real success. I was out in the garden on a nightly basis hunting slugs. This year I did somethings differently.1. No mulch2. keep planting area free of day time slug hiding spots3. watering individual plants at its base early in the morning 4. in the evening if I see a slug it’d disposed of,Not sure if this is helping but I did add a lot of coffee grounds to the soil in the beginning of spring. So far every thing is looking good plants aren’t being gobbled up by the slugs

[Tania]

yes Barb, they know EXACTLY where the garden is .

In PNW, this is a battle we never win, but after several years of gardening in PNW I believe I get best results when I diligently walking around my garden beds every evening and pick the darm things and execute them by cutting in half (gross, I know, but it is satisfying ). As a result, I see less of the huge slugs (we call them banana slugs as they could be 5"+ long and can eat a whole medium-size lettuce over night...), still a few smaller ones (I am guessing these are newborns), but these small ones are doing much less damage, and I can live with that.

good luck!

[dice]

Slugs do like beer. A salad bowl full out in a garden
with slugs usually collects several overnight. I don't
know yet whether snails like beer. I keep finding them
where I haven't put out any iron phosphate based slug
and snail control, or where rain washed it down into
the mulch. I crunch them with my foot and leave
them for the birds.

(I saw a stellar's jay with a big cheeto in its beak on
the corner of the garage last winter. Surely snails are
tastier. If only the crows would eat them, we would
be snail-free in a very short time.)

[kudzu9]

You can buy stips of copper foil to form a barrier; the metal provides a small static electricity shock and keeps the slugs at bay. The foil is pricey if you have a large area or many plants, so I have simply stripped off the insulation from regular house wiring and laid down circles around my plants. Can't say that it will prevent all slug damage, but it does seem to work and it's cheap, and you don't need to keep applying something.

[lumierefrere]

I like the Murphy's Oil Soap and watching them dissolve. I'd be glad to spare their stupid little lives if they were headed AWAY from the garden but they never are. I have cut them in half, that's a little hard plus if they're way down into the stem of some weeds, you can't reach them and the spray does. Whatever works and is easiest.

The obvious fact is that anything requires a significant investment in time, hunched over, eyes straining preferrably 2 x a day--when they come out in the morning and when they're on the attack in the evening.

Banana slugs sound absolutely disgusting. Geez, how big are these things going to get? I have at least 2 snakes living under my front step--don't they eat slugs?

[dice]

Slug and snail predators:

Eastern Box Turtle:
http://www.warner.redclay.k12.de.us/boxturtl.htm
http://www.kcmo.org/kc150.nsf/web/turtle?opendocument

Various other kinds of turtles with other
habitat ranges are also reported to eat
slugs and snails.

Ducks eat both slugs and snails.

Garter snakes will eat slugs, don't know about
snails.

The turtles will eat the garter snakes, too.

Though the turtles are unobtrusive, low-impact
wildlife, ducks can probably eat more slugs and
snails in less time (bigger, faster, more panoramic
eye-view of the territory). But how are you going
to keep them down on the farm? If you don't have
a pond, they might just take off for some nearby
body of water.

That could be a problem with the turtles, too,
although one would think that a constant supply
of slugs and snails in the garden would be an
attraction for them.

Also, caffeine kills slugs. Might work on snails,
too. Mixing coffee grounds with something else
to avoid the crusting affect that you see when
mulching with coffee grounds alone is probably
a good idea.

[oh2fly]

My ducks wouldn't stop at the slugs. Lettuce, any seedling emerging, anything that looked tasty would be fair game. They are fenced away from the garden.

[dice]

So the ducks are out.

One thing one can do with box turtles is drill
a little hole in the corner of their shell (painless),
and stake them out with stranded wire or metal
cable attached to the hole in the shell and a
short stake driven into the ground. Then whenever
one is weeding, pruning, thumping, etc, one can
turn them loose to wander the rows and eat whatever
slugs and snails they can find. Doing this early in
the morning, before the slugs and snails have taken
refuge for the day, is probably the most effective
time of day. By the time one is ready to move on
to somewhere else, they probably have not wandered
so far away that one cannot easily find them and
put them back on their leash.

They may need a spot where they can find some
shade in the heat of the day (which can be under
a tomato plant, for example), and perhaps a
saucer of water would be welcome. I don't know
whether turtles like beer.