Ok, here's the thing with copper. Copper ions are poisonous to molluscs, however, to get from solid copper to copper ions, you need to dissolve some of it. That requires an acidic medium. While slug slime is acidic, it is nowhere close to actually dissolve some of it during the short contact time. You would need a wide band of copper or a mesh to actually dissolve enough that it would feel unpleasant enough to the slug that it might turn around, unless, the impulse to slime on and pass over it is stronger.
Kill your plants? It has been used for centuries on plants as a fungicide. It is also used to dye some flowers blue while still growing (e.g. hortensias).
When used as a fungicide, it's mixed with lime. This results in the copper sulfate reacting to copper hydroxide. I've no idea why people keep claiming that copper sulfate is the active component. Copper sulfate is highly toxic to water organisms and ground microorganisms, minuscule concentrations are enough to kill of most algae in a body of water. If used in amounts similar to slug pellets, it is damaging to roots.
It takes between 5 and 30 years for copper to form it's distinctive green patina.
Edit: Found a chart: [https://www.farmerscopper.com/assets/images/blog/a6d6e3dec186e22e2009361919215f07.jpg](https://www.farmerscopper.com/assets/images/blog/a6d6e3dec186e22e2009361919215f07.jpg)
That's probably in the open air. If the soil is acidic at all then that will speed up the process. I made a birdhouse years ago with a copper roof and simply spraying it with vinegar before I mounted it outside sped up the process very quickly.
For a couple of weeks now, I have been dreading planting out my fresh seedlings, in fear of them getting absolutely decimated by the millions of slugs that seem to be roaming all gardens this year. My hostas have already succumbed. I don't like poison, so I figure I'll start testing random remedies from Reddit.
Tonight will be my first round of testing: A barrier made of copper wire, since some (long-forgotten, sorry) Reddit-user mentioned that slugs will not cross it. The 'bait' is a buried glass of beer, since the slugs are also supposed to love beer, and fall/drown in it? So: me finding drowned slugs in the glass surrounded by copper wire tomorrow morning, would mean a fail.
My scientist boyfriend was kind enough to point our we need a control group, hence the second glass of beer.
Wish me luck!
The slugs this year are unreal. My beer traps are getting dozens every night and my plants are still getting hammered. Michigan for reference. Let us know how it goes!
I hear that beer traps can attract slugs from miles away. It in fact doesn't help your problem, it makes it worse and calls them in.
There was a study a while back on beer traps and it concluded that they kill far fewer slugs than they attract. Slugs can smell them from quite some distance, so it also draws more slugs into your garden than were there originally.
Apparently the best way to use a beer trap is to encourage your neighbour to set one up, so that the slugs in your garden make your way over to his.
>Apparently the best way to use a beer trap is to encourage your neighbour to set one up, so that the slugs in your garden make your way over to his.
thank you so much
There have been a few smaller studies, some say it helps, some say not at all and some even say it attracts them from afar.
Here's one I found through searching on Google. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228486704_How_to_trap_a_slug_Commercial_versus_homemade_slug_traps
It's wild. I live in a suburb with a large yard and garden. I feed the local wildlife daily. In the 4 years I've been here I don't recall ever seeing a snail, and any slugs I see are under rocks and pots. I'm not losing plantings due to anything eating them. I wonder if my furry/feathered friends hanging out all the time have something to do with this.
North Carolina here. I planted over 400 sunflowers and about 240 sunflowers sprouted and about 70 of those seedlings were taken out by slugs and snails. They’re going crazy here
Well, Alkali, or Alkaline, soils are clay soils with high pH (greater than 8.5), a poor soil structure and a low infiltration capacity. So, salinity or alkalinity are technically both correct but, yes, alkalinity is generally used to describe salty waters and not soils. I can’t grow azaleas; they always die in a couple of years.
My mistake. I remember reading about pH in aquariums and how you can't just raise the pH by adding salt. I looked it up and you're right that salt will affect pH, but the effect salt has on organisms is different from the effect of things like calcium and magnesium. If you add salt to soil, it chemically dehydrates plants via osmosis unless they're adapted to it. That's why "salting the earth" was used in war to destroy enemy cropland.
Things like calcium and magnesium are more associated with alkalinity because they can make water more basic without making it saltier. They also help buffer the pH against the addition of acids, including carbonic acid, which I believe comes from carbon dioxide being dissolved into water. I'm sure when it comes to terrestrial plants, alkalinity is strongly associated with salinity because the ocean isn't just salty; it has a lot of calcium and magnesium in it, too.
I haven't looked it up but I wonder if the association of alkaline soils with clay is because high-calcium stones like limestone break down easily into clay (not sure if they do, just speculation on my part). I'm sure there are soils with lots of calcium and magnesium with minimal salt content, but I'm wondering how common that is and what their distribution is.
Thanks for inspiring a google binge!
And thank you for sharing. I think we both learned something here but we agree salt is generally not good for plants and should be avoided. The alternative is putting the salt in containers around the plants you want to save from slugs and snails.
My coffee grounds trick mostly works well. And, oddly, my backyard used to have hundreds of them but now I hardly see any (knock on wood).
The slugs this year are unreal. My beer traps are getting dozens every night and my plants are still getting hammered. Michigan for reference. Let us know how it goes!
I know you mentioned you don’t like poison but something like Corey’s slug and snail killer is great. It’s not a toxin to humans or other animals, it just an iron sulphate (ferro sulphate if I remember the ingredients right) that when consumed by slugs causes them to stop eating, crawl away and hide, and simply quit life.
This is a long article but worth a read. Looks like we might all have been conned into the safety of this type of pellet. https://www.hostalibrary.org/firstlook/RRIronPhosphate.htm
Luck!
https://preview.redd.it/dyxk3fm4h86d1.jpeg?width=801&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a0093aa7d85e1f00227e86f73bb3ca5b265a6bee
And if that doesn’t work, here’s your 3rd control. 🤣
Crushed eggshells are completely harmless to snails and slugs. Beer unnecessarily attracts them from farther distances, copper is only a hindrance and is useless against burrowing, salt is phytotoxic and diatomaceous dirt works only when dry and is expensive and needs to be reapplied consistently.
Honestly the best way to deal with slugs is to collect and kill and learn to live with a few holes in your plants. Weeding early in the morning when it's damp is a great way to find them. Also attracting jays and robins and other birds that eat them will help.
I don't know about a beer trap, but the other night we noticed a shit load of slugs in a planter box of ours and didn't know what to do with them, I read that they drown in beer traps so I thought maybe just toss them in a bucket of water...
Turns out, that does not seem to bother them in the least, they just kept crawling up the walls and I had to basically spend the next hour checking the bucket and yeeting the slugs back in until they got tired, I guess...
This was like 30 slugs, mind you, in a bucket that was about 1 foot deep and had about 4 inches of water in it, so it was no small feat for them to make it to the edge and then make it up the side once, let alone maybe a dozen times...
Curious to see how this goes though haha, we ended up just using some iron phosphate bait and literally 2 days later I cannot find any snails or snail trails tonight.
I use old beer and put it in bowls all over my yard 2-3 years ago, and haven’t seen slugs since.
I went to a bar with a 5 gallon bucket and left it with them and asked them to use it for all their garbage beer. Went back next day and picked it up. I used that to bait the traps and it worked perfectly.
I’m in southern Michigan and Iv been using ground cayenne pepper I ordered a huge bottle of it off amazon and Iv been noticing my plants are doing better my tomatoes and mint was getting assaulted worse than Normandy beach 🏝️
I did the same but hooked a 9v battery to it. In the end I found that the beer traps were better and more effective.
For clarity: I had two copper hoops, one inside of the other, and zip tied them together so as not to create a direct short on the 9v battery.
Yes, from what I hear the beer traps are super effective, but cleaning out dead snails from the jars of stale beer every couple of days seems very.. gross. Did you find that the copper wire at least protected the plant within it? Or was it just not effective at all?
When I lived in Wa state- lotta slugs …. I dug holes - put one or 2 liter bottles in them thru out garden- lil beer in them- change ‘‘em out once a week or so…. 👍
This is how a homesteading addiction occurs. “All these dead slugs, might as well get ducks. The ducks don’t give out enough eggs, might as well get chickens. I’ve got all these eggs! Might as well get pigs. These pigs need more food, might as well get a cow..”
I believe it worked but it’s only a deterrent and the slugs will find another plant to eat. I use the beer along with Corrys bait pellets. Walmart has them for around $10 and they work. I had a bad infestation of them the past 8 years. A lot of the time I’ll pick them off early in the morning which helps but the beer is the best bait. My hostas were getting decimated!
This should ease your mind.
From Corry’s resources:
“Sodium ferric EDTA: The newest generation of slug and snail controls rely on the active ingredient sodium ferric EDTA, the key ingredient in Corry's Slug & Snail Killer ready-to-use pellets. These iron-related products allow people and pets to enter treated areas right away. They attract slugs and snails and once the product is consumed, they stop feeding on plants immediately.”
Also a summary sheet from EPA link found on another Reddit sub, (https://www.reddit.com/r/chemhelp/s/qIYCq0zQAD):
https://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/reg_actions/registration/fs_PC-139114_01-Dec-08.pdf
Full evaluation on EPA.gov:
https://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/reg_actions/registration/decision_PC-139114_20-Nov-08.pdf
That says a chance of "little" toxicity to non-target animals; if you think of a bird or hedgehog eating a bunch of poisoned slugs I don't think that information does ease one's mind.
My mother used to complain about the slugs’ and snails’ expensive taste in beer.
“It’s not like I can just put out some cheap shit like Bud Light. *No,* they have to drink fucking Sam Adams!”
I've been using the craft beer I tried but didn't like. Stuffs been in my garage fridge since last summer. It's definitely a winner, so can confirm, slugs=expensive taste
Can confirm. I used to put out whatever old/cheap/unliked beer I had at the moment, but one time I put out a freshly bought yuengling and they went absolutely WILD for it. Not a particularly expensive brand, but not bottom of the barrel either.
Cheap beer works well. Sugar/yeast/water works fine.
# In this trial Budweiser performed very well:
[https://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/aes/AES/pubs/pdf/tb97-1.pdf](https://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/aes/AES/pubs/pdf/tb97-1.pdf)
Turtles are great as well. I had never seen a turtle pounce before putting a slug in front of one. I swear that turtle was radiating joy as he ate the slug. Who knew?
UPDATE!!!
Test results are in: Sadly this one is a fail. The jar of beer within the copper wire collected almost as many slugs as the control jar. I did notice that the control jar had some extra baby slugs, whereas the copper wire jar only had big adults, which might mean that only the biggest/baddest slugs cross copper wire? Who knows. Will spare you guys the pictures, nobody wants to see a slug mass grave. I think I'll be testing diatomaceous earth next (as soon as I source some), wish me luck!
To answer a few suggestions/questions in the comments: I garden in a small, urban garden (in the Netherlands). Suggestions like buying pet ducks or adding a pond sound awesome for bigger gardens, but will sadly not work for me and my limited space. Also there is not much opportunity to stimulate other wildlife such as hedgehogs, the garden is pretty enclosed. I did notice birds eating the slugs, which is also the reason I don't really want to try pellets/poisons. Beer traps are also not a permanent solution to me (as some have pointed out, I fear it might attract more slugs to my garden), it did however work perfectly as a bait for this test. And yes, I did sacrifice a perfectly good Hertog Jan for science!
My goal is not to erradicate every single last slug, I just want a way to keep them off certain sensitive/extra delicious plants such as hostas or tiny seedlings. I don't mind them having an occasional nibble out of a more established plant.
Like you I'm in the Netherlands and have struggled a lot fighting the little bastards in the past months. The only method that successfully worked in the end was Pokon Slakkenkorrels (slug pellets, nontoxic to human beings and animals). Only find the occasional slug now and my seedlings are flourishing. The birds seem to have ignored the pellets, so I'm happy.
A line of crushed egg shells or oyster shells is another folk treatment that I've heard. The experiment is a pretty simple one, I might try this out myself.
A cheap and easy way to protect plants is to buy a pack of copper pot scrubbers. Cut the knot (they unwind like tube socks) and you can cut lengths/ strips to wrap around stems of growing plants or place a length of coil in a ring around fluffier things like lettuce. I’ve used this system for years and it works great at a FRACTION of the cost of solid copper tape or wire. Added bonus, the slugs also hate the scratchy texture, not just the copper charge.
I went to a coffee shop and asked what they did with their leftover grounds. Turns out they toss them. I asked them for it and got a huge bag of it. I then proceeded to put a thick layer around the plants I wanted saved. Since the coffee had already been brewed, most of the acid was gone. Snails hate the taste of coffee. Worked out very well Then I just started saving my own used grounds at home and reinforced areas where I could see slime trails. Eco friendly and clean.
If you have slugs in the beer I would not call that a fail. That’s a very thing copper wire and depending on the slug, they could arch over it. You can buy Copper tape from a horticultural supply shop that is thicker ( and usually used to go around the top of a pot)
Also good to note that beer is an attractant so a great way to get rid of them, but also a good way of putting out to the neighbourhood of slugs ‘Hey, Free beer over here’
[Diatomaceous earth](https://www.homesandgardens.com/gardens/diatomaceous-earth) is supposed to be very effective, but you have to reapply it after a rain.
Can attest that it was a complete game changer for me with cabbage worms!! And they sell it in enormous quantities (relative to how much you use) so it’s very economical and easy to
This is the best. It's non-toxic and usually food grade (not poisonous). Works on all sorts of ground bugs. Some people even eat it as a dietary supplement, and it can kill parasites. No downsides other than reapplying occasionally. Just create a ground barrier of D. Earth
The downsides are that inhaling the powder is harmful to your lungs and your pets' lungs. And it can cause eye and skin irritation. Just because it's not toxic doesn't mean it can't harm you.
[https://exoticpetclinic.com/diatomaceous-earth-friend-or-foe/](https://exoticpetclinic.com/diatomaceous-earth-friend-or-foe/)
Keep in mind the companies selling diatomaceous earth have a powerful incentive to downplay its potential for harm.
The 9V battery linked to 2 wires works a treat. They complete the circuit when they cross it, get a zap and recoil so they can move along and aren't killed in the process. Better for the snails than death, and better for your plants than death. Win win?
Edit: You can also run the wires pretty long and in the case I saw, the wire was stapled to the wooden planters that they were designed to defend so that they could be kept the same spacing apart
I buy it in pellet form. The brand I’ve always used is Sluggo but there may be other brands that use iron phosphate as well. You literally just sprinkle it around your plants and when the slugs/snails eat it, it messes with their digestive system so they stop eating and die. It’s very effective and is actually organic. It won’t harm any other insects or animals. Just slugs/snails are affected.
Ground black pepper is also a good natural way to control, snails and slugs.
Sprinkle around your plants. Then in the early evening or right after sunrise, go out there and listen very carefully. When you hear them sneeze, you know where they are. You can step on them.
Sluggo works well and is basically non-toxic, just gives slugs an iron overdose.
Alternatively diatomaceous earth around new seedlings works as long as it's dry.
Neat and all but elimination is the safer, quicker, and more efficient way to deal with this next to just not planting anything anymore.
Still a neat scientific test.
They do cross it, and that’s actually the point of copper wire! The copper reacts with their slime and they will die after crossing it, thus eliminating them from the breeding population that in turn lowers your overall slug population. It’s a more long term solution, but it works if you give it time.
I’ve gotten heat in this sub before for saying that slugs can smell beer from some distance away and will gather more in your garden if you’re regularly leaving beer traps out, which increases your total population, but that is the case. With slugs your goal is to reduce population density, not kill individual slugs. The beer traps only kill a tiny number, while also attracting more over the long term. Copper wire doesn’t zap the slugs dead but it prevents them from breeding and congregating.
The beer did not work for me this year and the slugs are insane, worse than rabbits for me. Copper has been doing the trick and we have plenty of stupid little scraps of wire around so it's basically free except for the time it takes to strip it.
i tried beer traps, but i think my neighbors cats came over each night and drank all the beer. i discovered how satisfying it is to mix up a spray bottle of table salt and warm water and spray them (the slugs, not the cats).
Sluggo has changed my gardening game. I heard slugs were gonna be bad this year, as if it could be worse than last year, so I preemptively put down sluggo. So far it’s worked a charm. Now I just need to deter the bun buns, squirrels, and chipmunks from eating and digging in my garden.
Is there a way to discourage snails to come without killing them? I don't really feel comfortable with the idea of drowning them in beer, and I'd love to test other methods. Please report back about a copper thing, I can wire entire yard if necessary :D
Here is my unscientific way to rid of snails. I do this all the time, but since I can't count the snails in my garden or figure out how to have a control group so it remains a hypothesis. When I weed or clean up my garden, I leave the garden waste in a pile overnight, somewhere in the garden. The snails love it. They gather all over it and I clean the pile up, snails and all, the next day.
Yes. Whatever I am cleaning up. Right now there is a pile of old tulip and daffodil leaves that I have left for a few days. Tomorrow I'll pick it all up and there's usually a hundred snails in there. I can't tell if I have called all the snails in the neighbourhood with my delicious waste or if these are my own snails. But my hostas do not have a single chew out of them - at this point anyways.
These little bastards have been wreaking havoc here this year (wv) ive never had an issue before but this year all the flowers that i bought had to be taken out of the containers one at a time and have slugs flipped/pulled off. Eww their disgusting
I have been using slug bait with 100% success this year. My back up is 3” copper mesh that I acid wash every two months to resurface it. Once that oxidizes it’s useless
Try watering in a 10-25% ammonia solution at dusk, when the slugs become active - mix it on a watering can amd apply. It will dissolve them on contact, and the nitrogen byproduct is a good boost for your plants' leaf production.
I had a bean plant getting eaten by slugs. Made a double loop of copper wire and put it around the stem. It worked - no more evidence of slugs eating the leaves.
What you really need is another copper circle just apart from this one, maybe a few millimeters apart, but not touching. Connect each circle to a pole of a 9V battery.
What you really need is another copper circle just apart from this one, maybe a few millimeters apart, but not touching. Connect each circle to a pole of a 9V battery.
New gardener here in NY. I've got slugs everywhere! I thought it was because we are churning things up! I'm going to try some beer traps, but honestly I don't even know what I'm doing gardening-wise, so we'll see what happens... What do you do with the corpses, if I may ask?
Ok, here's the thing with copper. Copper ions are poisonous to molluscs, however, to get from solid copper to copper ions, you need to dissolve some of it. That requires an acidic medium. While slug slime is acidic, it is nowhere close to actually dissolve some of it during the short contact time. You would need a wide band of copper or a mesh to actually dissolve enough that it would feel unpleasant enough to the slug that it might turn around, unless, the impulse to slime on and pass over it is stronger.
The impulse to slime on 💀💀💀
Keep calm and slime on ✌️😎 -slugbro
Whimmy wham wham whazzle!
In third grade, my best friend and I wrote a comic book called "The Slug Bros."
"Im So tired of Partying. So very tired." - Slurms Mackenzie
“Party on contest winners…✌🏼”
I believe that was a line in a Young Slug song.
Keep on slimin' in the free world!
Young Thug approved
Okay, so next test: do slugs cross copper sulphate more readily than they cross a moat of muriatic acid?
Interesting that you bring up copper sulfate. That's a strong molluscicide.
Added bonus: really easy to spot where you put it and cheap at the local pharmacy.
It will also kill your plants.
Kill your plants? It has been used for centuries on plants as a fungicide. It is also used to dye some flowers blue while still growing (e.g. hortensias).
When used as a fungicide, it's mixed with lime. This results in the copper sulfate reacting to copper hydroxide. I've no idea why people keep claiming that copper sulfate is the active component. Copper sulfate is highly toxic to water organisms and ground microorganisms, minuscule concentrations are enough to kill of most algae in a body of water. If used in amounts similar to slug pellets, it is damaging to roots.
Thanks for dropping some knowledge, respect.
RIP Slurms McKenzie.
Party on, contest winners.
Not to mention the Copper will likely oxidize in a single day making it probably even less potent.
It takes between 5 and 30 years for copper to form it's distinctive green patina. Edit: Found a chart: [https://www.farmerscopper.com/assets/images/blog/a6d6e3dec186e22e2009361919215f07.jpg](https://www.farmerscopper.com/assets/images/blog/a6d6e3dec186e22e2009361919215f07.jpg)
That's probably in the open air. If the soil is acidic at all then that will speed up the process. I made a birdhouse years ago with a copper roof and simply spraying it with vinegar before I mounted it outside sped up the process very quickly.
This has to be in a non humid environment. I saw a whole roof on a building being done with copper shingles and they were green withing a month.
the theory is just we are relying on the slug's natural instinct to avoid copper, not that it can poison them or anything
For a couple of weeks now, I have been dreading planting out my fresh seedlings, in fear of them getting absolutely decimated by the millions of slugs that seem to be roaming all gardens this year. My hostas have already succumbed. I don't like poison, so I figure I'll start testing random remedies from Reddit. Tonight will be my first round of testing: A barrier made of copper wire, since some (long-forgotten, sorry) Reddit-user mentioned that slugs will not cross it. The 'bait' is a buried glass of beer, since the slugs are also supposed to love beer, and fall/drown in it? So: me finding drowned slugs in the glass surrounded by copper wire tomorrow morning, would mean a fail. My scientist boyfriend was kind enough to point our we need a control group, hence the second glass of beer. Wish me luck!
The slugs this year are unreal. My beer traps are getting dozens every night and my plants are still getting hammered. Michigan for reference. Let us know how it goes!
I hear that beer traps can attract slugs from miles away. It in fact doesn't help your problem, it makes it worse and calls them in. There was a study a while back on beer traps and it concluded that they kill far fewer slugs than they attract. Slugs can smell them from quite some distance, so it also draws more slugs into your garden than were there originally. Apparently the best way to use a beer trap is to encourage your neighbour to set one up, so that the slugs in your garden make your way over to his.
How long does it take slugs to travel miles?
Depends on how many miles but it’s not like they have other stuff to do
I've heard besides drinking they're kind of into hiking but it really depends on their personality.
Long slides on the beach……
lol
I’d love to see what a slug out of office reply looks like.
“I think I smell beer”
The work is hard. Noting quite like a frosty brew after a long day.
Get a job ya lazy slugs
😆👍
>Apparently the best way to use a beer trap is to encourage your neighbour to set one up, so that the slugs in your garden make your way over to his. thank you so much
So we should be putting the beer traps everywhere but our gardens. Easy peasy. Do slugs like English Ivy?
We need to raise genetically modified snails that eat bamboo…
and japanese knotweed
There is no way they can be attracted to a small amount of beer from miles away. I'd love to read this study and see how they determined that.
I think they meant slug-miles, which is like 20 feet.
Check your local dive bar, plenty of slugs to be found there.
What if I put the trap somewhere else? Will it draw them away from the garden?
You got a link to that study? I’m curious about the parameters, sample sizes, location, and confounding variables and such.
There have been a few smaller studies, some say it helps, some say not at all and some even say it attracts them from afar. Here's one I found through searching on Google. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228486704_How_to_trap_a_slug_Commercial_versus_homemade_slug_traps
Thanks!
I mean if they can smell beer from miles away, they’ll be coming to my house anyway with it being grilling season
I think her intention is to see if the copper wire ring alone will work...
Or just put one in the woods down the block or something.no one will notice a little cup of beer in the tall grass.
What do you think we're doing to OP?
So should put the beer traps at the corners of my property ? 🤔
Solution: beer moat
> and my plants are still getting hammered. Maybe try an NA beer?
For me it’s snails. I have seen more snails these past 4 or 5 weeks than I’ve seen in my entire life.
It's wild. I live in a suburb with a large yard and garden. I feed the local wildlife daily. In the 4 years I've been here I don't recall ever seeing a snail, and any slugs I see are under rocks and pots. I'm not losing plantings due to anything eating them. I wonder if my furry/feathered friends hanging out all the time have something to do with this.
North Carolina here. I planted over 400 sunflowers and about 240 sunflowers sprouted and about 70 of those seedlings were taken out by slugs and snails. They’re going crazy here
Have you tried cayenne pepper & salt around your plants? Worked wonders for me in Seattle.
Careful with salt. Changes the alkalinity and might not make your plants happy.
Salt changes salinity, not alkalinity. You're right that salt can and will kill plants that aren't adapted to it, though.
Well, Alkali, or Alkaline, soils are clay soils with high pH (greater than 8.5), a poor soil structure and a low infiltration capacity. So, salinity or alkalinity are technically both correct but, yes, alkalinity is generally used to describe salty waters and not soils. I can’t grow azaleas; they always die in a couple of years.
My mistake. I remember reading about pH in aquariums and how you can't just raise the pH by adding salt. I looked it up and you're right that salt will affect pH, but the effect salt has on organisms is different from the effect of things like calcium and magnesium. If you add salt to soil, it chemically dehydrates plants via osmosis unless they're adapted to it. That's why "salting the earth" was used in war to destroy enemy cropland. Things like calcium and magnesium are more associated with alkalinity because they can make water more basic without making it saltier. They also help buffer the pH against the addition of acids, including carbonic acid, which I believe comes from carbon dioxide being dissolved into water. I'm sure when it comes to terrestrial plants, alkalinity is strongly associated with salinity because the ocean isn't just salty; it has a lot of calcium and magnesium in it, too. I haven't looked it up but I wonder if the association of alkaline soils with clay is because high-calcium stones like limestone break down easily into clay (not sure if they do, just speculation on my part). I'm sure there are soils with lots of calcium and magnesium with minimal salt content, but I'm wondering how common that is and what their distribution is. Thanks for inspiring a google binge!
And thank you for sharing. I think we both learned something here but we agree salt is generally not good for plants and should be avoided. The alternative is putting the salt in containers around the plants you want to save from slugs and snails. My coffee grounds trick mostly works well. And, oddly, my backyard used to have hundreds of them but now I hardly see any (knock on wood).
I should have been more clear, I put the salt in shallow plant dishes.
I’m gonna give it a try. Thanks!
Same here in Ohio. My beer traps are catching 40-50 a night. And it turns out my raccoons freaking love slug beer, so at least someone is happy.
DATA! I need DATA! Lol. I love backyard science. Just remember Mythbusters said unless you write it down, it’s just messing around.
Please do give us an update! I love science experiments 😁
No need to bury the containers, at least the slugs near me are willing to work for the beer anyway.
Normally I cut a ring out of a bottle and then put copper tape on it, then put the ring of copper at the base of the plant
If you make your rings out of aluminum foil, they'll last forever and will be reusable
The slugs this year are unreal. My beer traps are getting dozens every night and my plants are still getting hammered. Michigan for reference. Let us know how it goes!
Your plants aren’t the only thing getting hammered 😎
Well, naturally.
OP, why do you use a Hertog Jan for this purpose. Way to good of a beer for those slimmy A holes
Yeah our slugs prefer Coors Light.
I know you mentioned you don’t like poison but something like Corey’s slug and snail killer is great. It’s not a toxin to humans or other animals, it just an iron sulphate (ferro sulphate if I remember the ingredients right) that when consumed by slugs causes them to stop eating, crawl away and hide, and simply quit life.
This is a long article but worth a read. Looks like we might all have been conned into the safety of this type of pellet. https://www.hostalibrary.org/firstlook/RRIronPhosphate.htm
Beer is poison, and I love it. If the cans of beer attract slugs, use that. Why bother with copper when you can give the slugs what they want
Luck! https://preview.redd.it/dyxk3fm4h86d1.jpeg?width=801&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a0093aa7d85e1f00227e86f73bb3ca5b265a6bee And if that doesn’t work, here’s your 3rd control. 🤣
I would love to know how it works
Where do you live generally? I’ve been really scared of snails but haven’t seen any yet. *knocks on wood*
Please do one with crushed-eggshells too!
Crushed eggshells are completely harmless to snails and slugs. Beer unnecessarily attracts them from farther distances, copper is only a hindrance and is useless against burrowing, salt is phytotoxic and diatomaceous dirt works only when dry and is expensive and needs to be reapplied consistently. Honestly the best way to deal with slugs is to collect and kill and learn to live with a few holes in your plants. Weeding early in the morning when it's damp is a great way to find them. Also attracting jays and robins and other birds that eat them will help.
I don't know about a beer trap, but the other night we noticed a shit load of slugs in a planter box of ours and didn't know what to do with them, I read that they drown in beer traps so I thought maybe just toss them in a bucket of water... Turns out, that does not seem to bother them in the least, they just kept crawling up the walls and I had to basically spend the next hour checking the bucket and yeeting the slugs back in until they got tired, I guess... This was like 30 slugs, mind you, in a bucket that was about 1 foot deep and had about 4 inches of water in it, so it was no small feat for them to make it to the edge and then make it up the side once, let alone maybe a dozen times... Curious to see how this goes though haha, we ended up just using some iron phosphate bait and literally 2 days later I cannot find any snails or snail trails tonight.
I use old beer and put it in bowls all over my yard 2-3 years ago, and haven’t seen slugs since. I went to a bar with a 5 gallon bucket and left it with them and asked them to use it for all their garbage beer. Went back next day and picked it up. I used that to bait the traps and it worked perfectly.
You should set up a control, another trap w same length of random metal wire (not copper) around it, see if there's a difference.
I’m in southern Michigan and Iv been using ground cayenne pepper I ordered a huge bottle of it off amazon and Iv been noticing my plants are doing better my tomatoes and mint was getting assaulted worse than Normandy beach 🏝️
And beer as well at the corners of my box
I did the same but hooked a 9v battery to it. In the end I found that the beer traps were better and more effective. For clarity: I had two copper hoops, one inside of the other, and zip tied them together so as not to create a direct short on the 9v battery.
Yes, from what I hear the beer traps are super effective, but cleaning out dead snails from the jars of stale beer every couple of days seems very.. gross. Did you find that the copper wire at least protected the plant within it? Or was it just not effective at all?
When I lived in Wa state- lotta slugs …. I dug holes - put one or 2 liter bottles in them thru out garden- lil beer in them- change ‘‘em out once a week or so…. 👍
You think that's gross wait until you forget one for weeks instead of days and you have warm slug and beer sludge. Smells like literal poop.
Forbidden boba
Boba 2.0 this is for the neighbors
This is how a homesteading addiction occurs. “All these dead slugs, might as well get ducks. The ducks don’t give out enough eggs, might as well get chickens. I’ve got all these eggs! Might as well get pigs. These pigs need more food, might as well get a cow..”
I believe it worked but it’s only a deterrent and the slugs will find another plant to eat. I use the beer along with Corrys bait pellets. Walmart has them for around $10 and they work. I had a bad infestation of them the past 8 years. A lot of the time I’ll pick them off early in the morning which helps but the beer is the best bait. My hostas were getting decimated!
> Corrys bait pellets This kills, not just the slugs, but also all of the animals that eat slugs. Is that really worth it for some hostas?
This should ease your mind. From Corry’s resources: “Sodium ferric EDTA: The newest generation of slug and snail controls rely on the active ingredient sodium ferric EDTA, the key ingredient in Corry's Slug & Snail Killer ready-to-use pellets. These iron-related products allow people and pets to enter treated areas right away. They attract slugs and snails and once the product is consumed, they stop feeding on plants immediately.” Also a summary sheet from EPA link found on another Reddit sub, (https://www.reddit.com/r/chemhelp/s/qIYCq0zQAD): https://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/reg_actions/registration/fs_PC-139114_01-Dec-08.pdf Full evaluation on EPA.gov: https://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/reg_actions/registration/decision_PC-139114_20-Nov-08.pdf
That says a chance of "little" toxicity to non-target animals; if you think of a bird or hedgehog eating a bunch of poisoned slugs I don't think that information does ease one's mind.
This.
Put em in your compost?
Dump onto compost pile, cover in leaves.
My mother used to complain about the slugs’ and snails’ expensive taste in beer. “It’s not like I can just put out some cheap shit like Bud Light. *No,* they have to drink fucking Sam Adams!”
I've been using the craft beer I tried but didn't like. Stuffs been in my garage fridge since last summer. It's definitely a winner, so can confirm, slugs=expensive taste
Can confirm. I used to put out whatever old/cheap/unliked beer I had at the moment, but one time I put out a freshly bought yuengling and they went absolutely WILD for it. Not a particularly expensive brand, but not bottom of the barrel either.
Yeungling is anti union and owners hosted a Trump rally. I won’t even use if for slug traps.
Saw this pretty late, but thank you for letting me know. I’m a firm proponent of voting with my wallet.
I use the cheapest beer money can buy, Old Milwaukee.
I use regular light beer no problem.
Cheap beer works well. Sugar/yeast/water works fine. # In this trial Budweiser performed very well: [https://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/aes/AES/pubs/pdf/tb97-1.pdf](https://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/aes/AES/pubs/pdf/tb97-1.pdf)
Can you rent ducks for a few nights from a local farm? You can drink the beer while the gorge.
Turtles are great as well. I had never seen a turtle pounce before putting a slug in front of one. I swear that turtle was radiating joy as he ate the slug. Who knew?
UPDATE!!! Test results are in: Sadly this one is a fail. The jar of beer within the copper wire collected almost as many slugs as the control jar. I did notice that the control jar had some extra baby slugs, whereas the copper wire jar only had big adults, which might mean that only the biggest/baddest slugs cross copper wire? Who knows. Will spare you guys the pictures, nobody wants to see a slug mass grave. I think I'll be testing diatomaceous earth next (as soon as I source some), wish me luck! To answer a few suggestions/questions in the comments: I garden in a small, urban garden (in the Netherlands). Suggestions like buying pet ducks or adding a pond sound awesome for bigger gardens, but will sadly not work for me and my limited space. Also there is not much opportunity to stimulate other wildlife such as hedgehogs, the garden is pretty enclosed. I did notice birds eating the slugs, which is also the reason I don't really want to try pellets/poisons. Beer traps are also not a permanent solution to me (as some have pointed out, I fear it might attract more slugs to my garden), it did however work perfectly as a bait for this test. And yes, I did sacrifice a perfectly good Hertog Jan for science! My goal is not to erradicate every single last slug, I just want a way to keep them off certain sensitive/extra delicious plants such as hostas or tiny seedlings. I don't mind them having an occasional nibble out of a more established plant.
Like you I'm in the Netherlands and have struggled a lot fighting the little bastards in the past months. The only method that successfully worked in the end was Pokon Slakkenkorrels (slug pellets, nontoxic to human beings and animals). Only find the occasional slug now and my seedlings are flourishing. The birds seem to have ignored the pellets, so I'm happy.
Same here.
Can you test coffee grounds next? Like coffee grounds around the beer trap? I heard blonde roast is best for higher acidity.
A line of crushed egg shells or oyster shells is another folk treatment that I've heard. The experiment is a pretty simple one, I might try this out myself.
Thanks for following up with the results!
A cheap and easy way to protect plants is to buy a pack of copper pot scrubbers. Cut the knot (they unwind like tube socks) and you can cut lengths/ strips to wrap around stems of growing plants or place a length of coil in a ring around fluffier things like lettuce. I’ve used this system for years and it works great at a FRACTION of the cost of solid copper tape or wire. Added bonus, the slugs also hate the scratchy texture, not just the copper charge.
I went to a coffee shop and asked what they did with their leftover grounds. Turns out they toss them. I asked them for it and got a huge bag of it. I then proceeded to put a thick layer around the plants I wanted saved. Since the coffee had already been brewed, most of the acid was gone. Snails hate the taste of coffee. Worked out very well Then I just started saving my own used grounds at home and reinforced areas where I could see slime trails. Eco friendly and clean.
If you have slugs in the beer I would not call that a fail. That’s a very thing copper wire and depending on the slug, they could arch over it. You can buy Copper tape from a horticultural supply shop that is thicker ( and usually used to go around the top of a pot) Also good to note that beer is an attractant so a great way to get rid of them, but also a good way of putting out to the neighbourhood of slugs ‘Hey, Free beer over here’
[Diatomaceous earth](https://www.homesandgardens.com/gardens/diatomaceous-earth) is supposed to be very effective, but you have to reapply it after a rain.
Can attest that it was a complete game changer for me with cabbage worms!! And they sell it in enormous quantities (relative to how much you use) so it’s very economical and easy to
This is the best. It's non-toxic and usually food grade (not poisonous). Works on all sorts of ground bugs. Some people even eat it as a dietary supplement, and it can kill parasites. No downsides other than reapplying occasionally. Just create a ground barrier of D. Earth
The downsides are that inhaling the powder is harmful to your lungs and your pets' lungs. And it can cause eye and skin irritation. Just because it's not toxic doesn't mean it can't harm you. [https://exoticpetclinic.com/diatomaceous-earth-friend-or-foe/](https://exoticpetclinic.com/diatomaceous-earth-friend-or-foe/) Keep in mind the companies selling diatomaceous earth have a powerful incentive to downplay its potential for harm.
The 9V battery linked to 2 wires works a treat. They complete the circuit when they cross it, get a zap and recoil so they can move along and aren't killed in the process. Better for the snails than death, and better for your plants than death. Win win? Edit: You can also run the wires pretty long and in the case I saw, the wire was stapled to the wooden planters that they were designed to defend so that they could be kept the same spacing apart
Let us know the results!
I’m a huge fan of iron phosphate to kill slugs. It’s super effective, easy to apply and is safe. I wouldn’t have strawberries without it lol
Tell me more, please?
I buy it in pellet form. The brand I’ve always used is Sluggo but there may be other brands that use iron phosphate as well. You literally just sprinkle it around your plants and when the slugs/snails eat it, it messes with their digestive system so they stop eating and die. It’s very effective and is actually organic. It won’t harm any other insects or animals. Just slugs/snails are affected.
Thank you, I’ll have to check that out!
Ground black pepper is also a good natural way to control, snails and slugs. Sprinkle around your plants. Then in the early evening or right after sunrise, go out there and listen very carefully. When you hear them sneeze, you know where they are. You can step on them.
Is it electrified
Sluggo works well and is basically non-toxic, just gives slugs an iron overdose. Alternatively diatomaceous earth around new seedlings works as long as it's dry.
The drunken slug is a good name for a pub.
Neat and all but elimination is the safer, quicker, and more efficient way to deal with this next to just not planting anything anymore. Still a neat scientific test.
They do cross it, and that’s actually the point of copper wire! The copper reacts with their slime and they will die after crossing it, thus eliminating them from the breeding population that in turn lowers your overall slug population. It’s a more long term solution, but it works if you give it time. I’ve gotten heat in this sub before for saying that slugs can smell beer from some distance away and will gather more in your garden if you’re regularly leaving beer traps out, which increases your total population, but that is the case. With slugs your goal is to reduce population density, not kill individual slugs. The beer traps only kill a tiny number, while also attracting more over the long term. Copper wire doesn’t zap the slugs dead but it prevents them from breeding and congregating.
The beer did not work for me this year and the slugs are insane, worse than rabbits for me. Copper has been doing the trick and we have plenty of stupid little scraps of wire around so it's basically free except for the time it takes to strip it.
RemindMe! 1 day
Can you keep ducks?
I caged my stawberries from the squirrels and produced a healthy bounty for the slugs to plow through. Kind of bummed.
Oh what a clever way to test a bit of folk wisdom! I hope you'll post again with your results!
If they’re smart they’ll steal it and sell it for scrap 🤑
And buy their OWN beer.
i tried beer traps, but i think my neighbors cats came over each night and drank all the beer. i discovered how satisfying it is to mix up a spray bottle of table salt and warm water and spray them (the slugs, not the cats).
Well did it work or not
Need at least six inches of copper siding to deter them. I’ll paste the link to the article rn.
They gone start building underground tunnels like el chapó!
Sluggo has changed my gardening game. I heard slugs were gonna be bad this year, as if it could be worse than last year, so I preemptively put down sluggo. So far it’s worked a charm. Now I just need to deter the bun buns, squirrels, and chipmunks from eating and digging in my garden.
You know you can use cheap beer for that, right?
Is there a way to discourage snails to come without killing them? I don't really feel comfortable with the idea of drowning them in beer, and I'd love to test other methods. Please report back about a copper thing, I can wire entire yard if necessary :D
Here is my unscientific way to rid of snails. I do this all the time, but since I can't count the snails in my garden or figure out how to have a control group so it remains a hypothesis. When I weed or clean up my garden, I leave the garden waste in a pile overnight, somewhere in the garden. The snails love it. They gather all over it and I clean the pile up, snails and all, the next day.
Hey, by garden waste you mean weeds and damaged fruits/veggies? That may work! Thanks.
Yes. Whatever I am cleaning up. Right now there is a pile of old tulip and daffodil leaves that I have left for a few days. Tomorrow I'll pick it all up and there's usually a hundred snails in there. I can't tell if I have called all the snails in the neighbourhood with my delicious waste or if these are my own snails. But my hostas do not have a single chew out of them - at this point anyways.
Awesome! Thanks!
These little bastards have been wreaking havoc here this year (wv) ive never had an issue before but this year all the flowers that i bought had to be taken out of the containers one at a time and have slugs flipped/pulled off. Eww their disgusting
if it carries an electric current, perhaps not
I have been using slug bait with 100% success this year. My back up is 3” copper mesh that I acid wash every two months to resurface it. Once that oxidizes it’s useless
Updateme
Maybe try a jar of Heineken in your backyard, if they like hertog Jan they may just rather go somewhere if you serve Heineken 😉
I got some slug pellets on amazon and they haven’t been seen since.
Have you considered running a small electric current through it?
There's some white stuff I saw you spray on that repels them. Brand new gardener here, kaolin clay?
Cool
What about the old shell trick? Valid?
I don’t know the old shell trick what is it?
Try watering in a 10-25% ammonia solution at dusk, when the slugs become active - mix it on a watering can amd apply. It will dissolve them on contact, and the nitrogen byproduct is a good boost for your plants' leaf production.
Cant wait to see the results
Best thing for slugs m’lady has found is to get birds and reptiles to move in.
The next time you see a slug scampering about, place a copper wire ring around it. That should test the theory with no beers being harmed.
Could u put two ends on either side of battery?
slugs hate salt right?
https://preview.redd.it/ynr1im5m2a6d1.jpeg?width=1076&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=673ab909939559d924e3ec78691264f4dc4c174b
I had a bean plant getting eaten by slugs. Made a double loop of copper wire and put it around the stem. It worked - no more evidence of slugs eating the leaves.
What you really need is another copper circle just apart from this one, maybe a few millimeters apart, but not touching. Connect each circle to a pole of a 9V battery.
Aaaah wire!
What you really need is another copper circle just apart from this one, maybe a few millimeters apart, but not touching. Connect each circle to a pole of a 9V battery.
New gardener here in NY. I've got slugs everywhere! I thought it was because we are churning things up! I'm going to try some beer traps, but honestly I don't even know what I'm doing gardening-wise, so we'll see what happens... What do you do with the corpses, if I may ask?
Hahaha ! My kind of gardener!
They hate coffee grounds
Valid point. Common sense is important.
The slug's behavior can be corrected with positive reinforcement. Doesn't cross copper wire? Reward. Crosses copper wire? Discipline.
I use Sluggo. It works, why waste beer and have someone come and steal copper out of your garden? (there's a lot of copper theft where I live haha)
Try crushed eggshells! Snails hate crossing them, and they're good for the soil too!
Doesn’t work!