Does Organic Slug Control Really Work? 

Of the MANY slug management videos I have watched over the past week, this is the most effective and informative video. I appreciate that you took the time to (1) explain the cause and effect of some of the preventive measures, noting what is not beneficial to your garden despite its effectiveness on slugs; (2) cite some of your references, especially highlighting key areas in peer-reviewed scientific articles. In essence, THANK YOU!

Can I just say how much I appreciate you getting right to the point and being so informative!! Thank you Sir!!! 👏👏👏🙌

The most detailed video that I have seen on slug control. Your narration is precise and well researched and your sensitivity to the environment and belief in nature is very commendable.

I hand-picked OVER 400 in one fairly small area last week! I was using dead leaves as mulch, and wow, they went to town, created multiple "maternity wards", because they were all fairly small. WHOOPS! It was also quite shady because of the hollyhocks, so I pruned the lower leaves, but yeah they are just everywhere!They especially love day lilies & pansies, too (and columbine petals!) -- all more than hostas. I go out at sundown with a flashlight.I have NEVER had luck with beer traps -- I have watched them drink, turn around & leave. HOWEVER, I am going to make some like you have, with the windows cut into it.I've never seen any slug predators ... literally, never seen a garter snake, despite knowing they're here somewhere. Or toads. Mind you, I have cats, so they'd probably just play with them. I have LOTS of robins that are all over the place in the evenings when I bring my cats inside.THANK YOU for mentioning salt & that you'd never use it -- I get SO MAD at everyone saying "just put a ring of salt around!"ALSO -- I bought some of the copper "ribbon" to put around my composter as an experiment ... it's pretty spendy, and corrodes within 6 months of putting it out. I actually found 2 slugs under it a few weeks go, grr!Thanks for a great episode!

Excellent points, Stephen! We've found in our garden that predators almost always keep slugs, snails, and insect pests in check. When they don't, we intervene as little as possible to help restore balance.

Nice work buddy! I love the simple design of the beer trap for slug control.

Your video is really one of the best videos I have watched on this topic. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Greatly appreciated.

Your videos are getting better and better each time! Jam-packed with practical, evidence-based information. Thanks again for your efforts.

FYI, I have worked out a solution for myself, I try to put small ponds in and around my planting areas. Every night, right around dusk a army of frogs, join with the garden toads and literally 'invade' my garden. They don't get every slug, but they keep the population very low. I also enjoy the sounds of the frogs, and seeing so many of them in my raised beds.

You have created an impressive series - thank you! There is so much "folk wisdom" in gardening, especially among organic gardeners, that is often difficult to sift the helpful from incorrect assumptions. It is refreshing, but more importantly, extremely constructive to have someone scientifically test various methods and suggestions and provide factual results. Kudos!

Regarding copper, it needs to be a wide enough strip to discourage your largest slugs from crossing. When a slug encounters the copper, it stretches itself out to see if it can reach the other side of the strip. A two inch long snail can, for example, easily cross a one inch wide strip of copper. I agree that copper strips are expensive. They are probably best kept for a raised bed that you start seedlings in.

So, I garden in raised wooden beds. After the rain, I take a bar of castle soap and scrub it on to the wooden rims to create a barrier all the way around. Slugs don’t seem to like crawling across lye soap. Just one more step. . .I also keep shallow pans of water on the ground to attract frogs and toads and lizards.

So that's why the birds love my garden! I very rarely have slug damage. I have the entire area covered in wood mulch which may be part of it but I see the birds constantly scratching around the mulch. Incidentally that is also how I'm able to top dress compost and have it get worked in. The birds do the work for me 😀

"That seems like a waste of beer". Love it, and love your videos. Thank you. Keep it up!

Totally agree Steve. We have mulched our vegetable garden for 30 years (we use grass clippings) and NO slugs in the veggy garden. We have heard that this type of mulch creates a great environment for earwigs which stay off the plants and eat the grass clippings instead. We also heard that the earwigs eat the slugs(do not know how accurate that is though?).

I like how u use time lapse of your garden as a back drop to your talking

Hi for over half a century now I have let nettles and brambles grow wild around my beds and brassica tunnel I don't like getting stung so the same as them also I mulch with nettles and brambles all over its worked for me all these years happy gardening Richardx

I don't know if this will get read (older video) but... I tried chopping up rose and raspberry stems and surrounding my strawberries to discourage snails and slugs, they seem to like strawberries as much as I do. The bed with the thorns had very little damage, the bed without had about 25% loss. This year I'm going to try running some thorn stems through a chipper/shredder to place around plants as a mulch. Just something I thought someone else would like to try. I really enjoy your vid's, thanks for all you do.

In my research I have heard that beer traps are not that effective due to them attracting slugs from all around the area thus only multiplying the problem. However, this was an interesting video. Appreciate the tips.

Brooooooo I like the new presentation and you seem more comfortable in front of the camera now. Thanks for the slug info, I hate slugs!

Great tips Stephen. I have a huge slug problem and they can make you feel like your fighting an uphill battle. I just planted three decent sized squash plants only to find that they had completely disappeared come morning- very frustrating. Manual picking is what I have found works the best, even though the problem still persists. I strap on a head lamp and go out with a mason jar and can easily find 30-40 large slugs in about 15 minutes. I have noticed larger populations of snakes and birds in my yard and even found a salamander in my raised bed the other day. I hope these critters bring this slug population into more manageable numbers soon. Thanks.

Stephen, I'm pretty sure that was a wood frog, not a toad... You should consider putting in some predator habitat too, I use terra cotta watering trays upside down with a doorway cut in them...

thank you for sharing have a blessed day

Stephen, wow, what quality! Thought I was watching a TV programme ;) Very well done and great information it's so useful! How did you do the timelapse shots with the sunlight on your garden?

Great information, thanks Stephen.

Thanks, very informative! My "garden" is on my balcony, so not amenable to predators, but I have used the beer in a bowl and caught slugs - I really like your trap and the beer substitute. I will have to try both.!

Thankyou for a sensible video both informative scientifically and ecologically. Really it is a constant effort to keep slugs under control having tried several suggestions manual removal or nematodes are probably the best methods. I have tried a thick layer of coffee grounds to some effect on a hosta Yvonne from northern ireland

More great information Stephen. I never thought salt was a good thing to use in my garden. Best wishes Bob.

thank you for a lovely presentation... that purple plum tree in your neighbour corner is excellent! to graft on,,,, simply gently weigh down a nice branch and graft it with your favorite peach/prune/plum/apricot/cherry/almond....so dead easy!!! it will give you decades of fruit!!!

What a great video! Very professional! I love your garden and you deserve to be very proud of it! I just want the slugs to leave my flowers alone as don't I don't have a full garden. Last year they wiped out all my marigolds and petunias within days before I even knew it was slugs. (I thought rabbits.) They never touched the begonias or coleus. I used the beer traps and that helped. Although, I had read that beer traps attract more slugs than would naturally be in your garden. So far this summer the damage has been mild. I started just picking them and dumping into a bucket with a lid. Next morning I give them to my neighbor's ducks. Ducks and chickens love them!

This is very useful! Thank you, Stephen!

Great tutorial, thank you

Good to know, Stephen! I haven't had a slug problem as of yet, but you never know!

Very good informative video!

Great video! I've seen a lot of vids that show slugs crossing over copper tape and even running up and down on it but sometimes they do go "hmm" and turn away. That 80% figure is probably right.

I pick any slugs I see when I'm in the garden and that seems to keep them in check before they become a problem. I also have lots of birds and toads nearby though so I'm sure that helps out. One thing I have noticed is that using staw in the top mulch layer is pretty much guaranteed to double or triple your slug population. I just don't use it, or cover it with bark or another heavier mulch. I like using straw as mulch, but sometimes it's just not worth the trouble. Thanks for the video!

copper attracts another pest. mostly active at night too, copper thieves! Nice video!

what a great video and info well done 🐦🐝🐞🐤👍👍👍

Thanks for the info!

I will never worry about eliminating slugs!

Wonderful video as always matey , One method I'm surprised you didn't mention... Using dry cat biscuits as bait with manual removal, A small bowl left in the garden in the evening will attract 100's , you can keep an eye on the population without killing any , or collect the bowl and slugs together for manual removal.... This way you can also identify any slugs you wish to keep (As some like the leopard slug (Limax maximus) are also beneficial :D

wow great video. Thanks

Good video, thanks

I'm happy to learn Toads and Robins prey on Slugs. This is my first year dealing with Slugs but we do have Toads and Robins so I'll keep an eye on it and see if the predators are enough to keep their populations down.

Awesome video, as usual. The slugs are primarily a pest against my strawberries here in Michigan. Unfortunately, so are the robins. The robins love to take single bites/pecks out of every ripe berry. Looks like the most natural way is a no go for me 😕

Nice one Stephen. 👍 Only just starting to see snails here now after all these years :/

Wonderful suggestions! I do use beer traps and hand-picking to control snails and slugs in my garden beds. Just for curious, could you paste the link to those theses? Thanks again!

In BC there are no slug predators that I know of...here, the better the habitat the more slugs. \ I envy your environmrent

Great video. I had slugs wreaking havoc in June here (dinosaur kale, sunflowers) in New Brunswick but it's better now with the drier warmer weather and possibly the robins,

another great informative video, in the Uk we are inundated with slugs and snails, an even cheaper method with the beer traps I've found is chopped orange skins in water, have you ever had a problem with moles? how would you deal with them?

Thanks so much for that, Stephen! I have 2 more. Fine woodshavings or sawdust are pretty good bariers as well, just keep it fluffed up so it will dry after a rain and if you have space for a duck, get a duck! Robins are great! They don't take on anything large though, which is my main slug problem at the moment, huuuugs red slugs. I estimate they must weigh about 20 grams. Even a toad would find that hard to swallow. They are as big as a shrew these things!

LOL the Beer worked. That is cool.

A rag soaked in beer will attract slugs, and it is less work to spray beer on the rag than refilling saucers with beer. You can cover the beer soaked rag with a paint can lid to protect it from rain.

I find the copper netting works well. I staple it around the perimeter of my raised beds and get very few slugs other than a few that might come in on the mulch or compost. Living in moist woods I get thousands of slugs in the rest of the yard. For years I used a flashlight and scissors (yuck), until I found the copper. I can also lay pieces of it around my seedlings until they size up a bit. It's a tad expensive but it has lasted for many years now.

skip to 8:30 for the verdict which is handpicking and homeade beer traps are best. 4:00 homemade yeast recipe

We've had a really big slug issue this year and they pretty much decimated the strawberry patch in just a couple of days. I have had success with egg shells but they're not so good if it rains. The lid on the beer trap is a good idea for the same reason.

Slugs and snails do not seem to be a problem to my tomatoes. I rarely see them on a plant. I want to plant a small area for some salads and spinach may be 4 feet by 2 feet. I saw some DIY videos about making a 9 volt electric fence with galvanized wires, quite cheap. It seems to be very effective but it would be only for a small area. Last summer they destroyed most of my salad so it is a new project.

I like your approach on this Stephen. We have quite the slug population this year and maybe even more snails. I did not know that robins eat slugs. Good to hear as we do have a family or two of robins about. No toads I am afraid but we do have garter snakes and I understand they also eat slugs. Thank you for this.

I agree, I don't mind them doing clean-up but don't want them eating my plants too, I wondered why there were so many, our management added woidchip mulch to everyone's yard, so it makes sense. I put a ring of diatomacious earth(food grade) around the base of all the plants I wanted left alone but I worry it will harm the earthworms so I'm looking for a better way. Thank you

Well done my friend, I have come to the same conclusions ;-) Now my biggest pest in the garden is chipmunks, they eat a lot of my berries, little buggers lol

You may not be able to keep a duck, so you need a friend with a duck that can visit every now and again! ; ) Here in Oregon's Willamette Valley, we've got some voracious slugs, but they are introduced species, so I don't feel too bad about dispatching them. They are one reason I don't used raised beds - the edges by the boards just provide too much habitat. And once there are slug eggs in a bed, no copper tape on the boards is going to help. I lay down boards and the slugs will go there to hide in the daytime. Then it's easy to collect them. And I find that they come in from my grass more than anywhere, so I try to keep a distance between my beds and the grass. And I hope your Leopard Frog sticks around (he's not quite a toad, but he will enjoy your garden, nonetheless).

Would copper phosphate in low doses in water? I had snail problem in my aquarium years ago that worked with no side effects.

thank you

...do you have any suggestions for getting rid of red lily beetles? (Desperate in Edmonton)

Hi Stephen Very interesting video and you seem to have much the same problem as we have in England, where several mild and wet winters have led to an explosion of them (and snails) This has not been helped by a decline in the hedgehog population as well I generally do hope for a harsh dry winter to help manage them but also the big seller here is "nematodes" and I would be interested in your views on these as I do have serious reservations about using them

Have you tried using wool mats and/or pellets?

My neighbor was able to afford to plant trees near my property - yay for birds! I have been bringing home toads from elsewhere and put in near my garden. Hopefully, these things will bring better eco system!!

Any thoughts on the slug eating nematodes.

Be careful when putting salt on your garden, salt will kill worms just as much as it will kill slugs. I did sprinkle some salt on some slugs in my garden and some salt accidentally whent on the worms and they were wriggling about like they were in pain, they died shortly afterwards.

we have a product here called slug-go...is that like slug tabs that you mentioned? they are omri listed...someone mentioned using it. it might be a good last resort to sprinkle around the tender sprouts

Maybe a single copper wire run close and parallel to a single galvanised wire around the side board of the raised bed or so on would be enough to set up the ionic/electrical transfer that deters slugs.

Hey Steven. Great video. Do you know does DE harm worms? Some people say it harms worms and other people say that it is good for worms because it is a small granular and it's good for their guts.

I live in the city (Edmonton , how do I attract frogs/toads to my garden? I do have Robins in my yard but this year there are more slugs in this year.

any tips on dealing with flea Beatles? they are cramping my style!

Found a video of a guy putting some slugs in a cargboard in the middle of DE.. Did not kill them but did repell them... You may find it in youtube

thanks so much! :D I just went out so discouraged to find maybe 25-30 slugs not yet back in hiding so I set a trap using the yeast and wheat flour and sugar, hopefully later today I'm going hunting for a toad what types of plants do you grow to attract the Robin's I've many different birds hanging out in my back yard, if possible I could take a snap shot of my garden thats struggling to live, then maybe you could give me a few pointers? Again tysm :D God Bless all your efforts to keep a Bio Happy Garden

Have you considered using a watered down garlic solution?

Very useful! I agree with the "keeping critters in balance" method. I'll have to try the CO2 generator trap, though. You can do a similar thing with trapping bedbugs :)

pretty interesting. never had much of a bug issue. knock on wood. lol

Interesting phenomena in my garden: the snails do not seem to damage my healthy looking salade. Could it be that snails eat the more unhealthy crops? I saw it somewhere on youtube

I tested copper myself. I have a great slug problem in my garden. Delphiniums have no defence to slugs and slugs love them. I sowed a seed tray of delphiniums indoors. Once they had germinated and added a few leaves I put a band of brand new copper tape around the seed tray. There were no holes or access points in the bottom or sides of the tray. I then left out the tray overnight and the following morning not a scrap of plant matter was left.

I was about to subscribe but noticed all your video are 3 years old. Is this channel still active ?

beer traps dont really work all that well unless you do a ton of them. Slugs just dont seem to travel from all over the garden. Ive had more luck doing raised beds, mulching alot, and using pellets here and there. Also hand or "foot" picking ;)

I've had excellent success using iron phosphate (acceptable for organic gardening) to poison slugs. The product I used is called Slug Magic, and is safe for people, pets, and garden wildlife - just not gastropods..

Steven we are still waiting for more posts

You said 'Toad' several times but your photos appears to be a 'Frog'? We are in Oregon I I've never seen so many slugs in one garden but we have a good number of Garter snakes that do a great job on our slugs.

will frog also eat slugs ?? Are frogs same as toads ?? What is the difference ??

I spray old liquid coffee on slugs and plants , works for me, but you have to reapplie often. my stupid slugs are sober and wouldn't fall for a beer trap

I use ferrous sulfate

Ducks work well. They eat slugs but not much produce and when it rains they go slug hunting. I wonder if a hot pepper spray would run slugs out of the garden.

you said you wouldn't use salts. but you recommend 20-20-20??

If only the birds here would eat the slugs and caterpillars instead of my tomatoes.... but the mockingbirds here in Texas like those sweet tomatoes more than the squishy bugs. Oh well, they've only gotten about 6 tomatoes so far out of the 40 or so I've harvested so I'll take what I can get.

Tryng with a Cane Toad ( Rhinella marina ) ?

Slugs have eaten every single one of my carrot seedlings, destroyed my broccoli and torn apart the lower leaves on my peas. I can't let birds in the garden, because i use bird netting to keep my cats out, and living in the heart of a city i doubt there are any toads around, i think ill try the beer method, it seems to be the only method that doesn't require much micromanaging.

The beer one is ineffective. It’s just a 🍺 beer tavern/pub for slugs. They have a sip then go for lunch on the vegetables.

use pieces of cucumber, they eat it, then die because of the salt or mineral content in the veggie.

I seem to kill as many predatory beetles as slugs with beer traps. Dang it.

Don't forget to add a Hedgehog 🦔 tunnel through your fence .....hogs LOVE slugs! RE: The Iron phosphate slug pellets 🔴 Iron phosphate is toted as a wildlife and pet friendly slug bait, but it's not! 🔴 EDTA is a chemical which makes metals more soluble, called a chelate. In iron phosphate products EDTA helps the iron to be taken up into the body of the snail or slug making it work much better than it might otherwise. In studies, it is the EDTA which has poisoned earthworms, and killed dogs, cats etc. (I found this from an American study). EDTA will NOT be mentioned on the box, as it is not classed as an "Active" ingredient, so people don't realise how poisonous it can be. Here's what the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) has to say about it: "The use of chemicals to manage slugs is not recommended. However, as a last resort, slug killers based on ferric phosphate are an option if used sparingly and stored safely. They contain ferric phosphate or iron III phosphate, which affects the gut system of snails and slugs causing them to stop feeding and die within three to six days. Although ferric phosphate is less toxic than metaldehyde, the other ingredients in the tablets can also affect earthworms and, if consumed in large quantities, can poison pets". I phoned the Organic Farmers institute that gives this product their stamp of approval today to actually ask if ALL the iron phosphate pellets contained EDTA....which they do. Apparently, despite the negative outscomes of studies, it has been deemed an allowed chelate by this organisation! If you DO choose to use it, follow the directions to the letter, and sprinkle it extremely lightly! Use as little as you possibly can! I'm disabled with Chronic Illnesses/Severe Chronic Pain, so it's very tempting, but it just doesn't sit right with me. I don't want to kill my earthworms! I'd rather make myself ill, by going out and collecting them, and taking them out to the edge of the wood to release them. Thanks for the interesting video....nice ti know that so many Canadians care about theur wildlife! 😊 Greetings from Scotland, uk 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇬🇧🌍 👋

Why dont just use beer, for 50 cents you got half a liter of beer. They get drunk and fall in. I put up 4 beer traps and in 1 day catched about half a pound of slugs.

I have frogs and birds on my vegetable plot, but my Pak Choi plants would not get to a size where they would grow faster than the slugs could destroy them. Meanwhile, dandelions and other weeds go untouched. edit: Note - if you tip the contents of a beer trap onto the soil, you will attract live slugs to the yeast and dead slug bodies, which other slugs will come in to eat. Diatomaceous earth is a myth - I have had slugs crawl right over it to get to high interest plants. Organic slug pellets do not kill out the whole slug population as other slugs will move in to fill the void, but will lower the population long enough for predators to regain control. Organic slug pellets kill slugs, but are not harmful to predators.