Slugs - no copper tape available and garlic doesn't work

[thecornflake]

Traps are out because I'm only using containers - nowhere to put them.

Suttons have copper tape in stock now so I will get some and try it. The garden centre was still out of stock yesterday when I went there.

Thanks for the skewer suggestion, that's a great way to pick them up if you don't like touching them (I don't).

[Christine]

I've used the organic ('pets need not be excluded') pellets and they have been very effective in containers - ferrous phosphate, if I remember rightly, which slugs don't like to crawl over. Less edffective on the allotment, though.

Re: beer traps - the alcohol content seems to be important - so Sainsburys cheap rubbish is useless. Beer wasn't working either - and I resented wasting the good stuff on slugs. THEN a friend told me that Carling is their preference and - you know what? - she was right!
It's true - slugs are lager louts!

Put nematodes down a couple of months ago but apparently they work best on the small ones but the situation did improve for a bit.

[wulf]

I go hunting the gastropods with a sharp knife, to keep the population down, and living with the fact that I am not going to eradicate them all (nor would I really want to - they do have a role in processing decaying material and feeding other creatures).

Mind you, I haven't been very regular at the task recently and discovered lots of kingsize slugs and snails when I went out in the rain last night!

Wulf

[nessnco]

Damp screwed up newspaper left over night works.

[deniseduck]

I've just bought some Growing Success organic slug pellets, and they say the active ingredient in them is Ferric Phosphate which is safe for pets and children. They don't mention birds though, and as we've been encouraging wild birds into our garden through feeding them all year, we're wondering if they will be poisoned if they eat the slugs that have eaten the pellets. We've been lucky enough to have had all kinds of wild birds, and would hate to use anything that would harm them. Does anyone know if these pellets are likely to do that?

[Christine]

I personally think that ferric phosphate is probably at least a bit harmful to most animals (see warning on packs). However, slugs definitely seem to go underground when they've eaten the pellets (reducing the possibility that birds/hedgehogs will pick them up) and only the crow family really eat non-living organisms, anyway, and they don't seem that keen on slugs in any condition.

I think they do a reasonable job - but I am keeping an eye out on the local bird population.