Any suggestions for home remedies to deal with slugs?
they devour my grapes in rainy weather.
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Corrys works well for me and the new formulation is very safe to use - which is important because my dog likes to eat it.
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I have found one bit of copper tube doesn’t discourage them, 2 tubes spaced apart gives them a little zap they don’t like, but they will keep trying until there is enough slime built up to protect them. 9 volts blows their mind, the only way to keep them out of my outdoor cat’s food.
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inventive way to protect cat food! how fast did your kitty learn to not get zaped?
Mine sometimes gets static during petting. And can give me a really nasty look if i accidentally zap him. Although thats more than 9 volt. Maybe they don’t feel 9 volt?
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I go out several times each evening once it’s dark, especially during rainy weather, use my light to collect them, put them in a container with handful of commercial fertilizer. They instantly die. If it’s dry I often water vegetable beds before sunset to encourage them to appear for collection. Once they are soup, I bury in my compost, “earth to earth” all is well!
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also creating habitat for frogs or even better hedgehogs will help decimate the slug population.
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Chickens.
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sorry for the non-home-remedy but you could take another look at sluggo, it’s super effective and a very safe chemical, and pretty cheap in bulk
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Try sluggo plus to wipe out earwigs and roly polies too. I had an infestation of all 3 this year. They were eating all my seedlings. Sluggo plus devastated their population in a week.
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Im going to use table salt on the ground.
It’s not good for the soil, but nothing is growing there anyway.
So much cheaper than slugbait.
this seems like a bad idea to me. That nothing is growing there now, does not mean you have to “ruin” the ground for future use.
Sorry if this is overly blunt. Not meant as a personal attack
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Believe me
it’s not a place anyone will use for a garden.
Mostly
a dirt path behind my apartment.
still , ruining the ground/soil to kill a few slugs. Seems like a horrible bad form of overkill. Especially if there are better alternatives around.
Also the salt will only work really short term (till it gets wet/rains). So it won’t even be super effective.
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You don’t have slug problem, you have a duck deficiency.
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Us mammals with our insulating skin need to lick both terminals of a 9v to feel anything, but slugs are like super conductors and even a 9v that is too dead to work in electronics can knock their blocks off.
This is still a fairly new thing for me, and actually one crawled across the terminals on top a day or 2 ago and died, shorting the battery so the others could invade. when they hit it on a vertical, they just peel back and fall off, releasing a glob of slime in the process, but on top they apparently just sit there and sizzle. Took apart an old alarm clock for the shielded connector and made a quick repair, so it shouldn’t happen again.
Just checked, static we can feel a small shock from is roughly 5,000 volts, but of course the amperage is very small, something like 1 milliamp for just an instant. While a 9v can supply maybe 100x more amperage continuously until it drains.
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For those who have never seen it…
And the Tool dub, for those of you who enjoy a little intensity in your lives.
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We “feel” the current. And the current that passes trough us is determined by the source (voltage and current limit) and ohms law, and our own resistance.
Your tongue has a low resistance. So a low voltage will cause a high enough current to feel. Same for a cut/wound on your finger. Also when your finger/skin is thin or wet.
I think most of us can feel around 15-20 volt on our skin (not tongue) as a lower limit. Tongue can probably detect around 1-2 volts.
The distance between the probes or + and - wire also matters. Twice as far apart gives a higher resistance.
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Only a guess But I wonder if wood ash, works pretty caustic but good for plants
Diatamanous earth may work I would not breath
Do not under estimate this this can bonify you lungs where a mask or shirt over face.
We had some problems with slugs this spring. Slugs are always around in the PNW, but this year they were particularly uncooperative (see pictures below). We put cups full of beer near their favorite trees. The slugs can’t resist it and they end up drowning in it. For what it’s worth, they seem to prefer IPAs.
– Mark
Pawpaw
Florida Giant Mulberry
Pakistan Mulberry
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Ammonia works excellent. It a tip I learned from an old hippy cannabis grower. He suggested it for killing powdery mildew on cucurbits which it also works excellent on since it has an alkaline PH just like baking soda and milk foliar sprays. I noticed on an overspray that the slug nearby was moving faster than I had ever seen a slug move. Hit it directly and figured I was onto something when it melted and died.
My secret weapon for slugs is ammonia in a sprayer. About 1 shot glass full to 1000ml spray bottle. It will burn them like napalm. Dance piggies dance. Damn slugs. No need to reapply. They melt there in about an hour like the wicked slug of the west. It won’t hurt the plants if you overspray. It just oxidizes to a nitrogen foliar spray. I go out about 9-10 after the slugs are out. It is a slug slaughtering dream.
The lemon scented stuff works fine. I often cannot find it unscented. Just household cleaning ammonia from the grocery store. About 2.99$ a half gallon. I have had the same bottle for years.
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