[Food] Slug pellets banned from today

carlzeiss said:

Just a quick reminder for NSC gardeners to stop using slug pellets to control those slimy pests that feast on your strawberries every year as the metaldehyde slug pellets ban has officially come into effect, making it illegal to use pellets containing this harmful chemical .

The good news is lager is also useful for controlling slugs and no need to buy the expensive stuff either as it seems they are not to fussy


https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/what-best-way-trapping-slugs

Preference for beer types
The encouraging message from this trial was that slugs were just as attracted to the cheapest types of lager as they were to the more expensive brands. Although bitter has been touted as being a more attractive than lager, there was little evidence for this here or elsewhere. In this trial, bitter and lager caught similar numbers of slugs. After a period of 3 – 4 days, beer traps caught, on average, 5 – 6 slugs. These are quite low numbers, and reflect the extremely long dry season.

Average number of slugs caught ( water ) 0.1 ( larger) 6.4 ( Bitter) 5.3


Very few slugs were caught in the water, compared to the beer. It is thought to be the combination of volatiles, and yeast that attract the slugs, and the alcohol content has been shown to have little bearing on effectiveness.2

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carlzeiss said:

Just a quick reminder for NSC gardeners to stop using slug pellets to control those slimy pests that feast on your strawberries every year as the metaldehyde slug pellets ban has officially come into effect, making it illegal to use pellets containing this harmful chemical .

The good news is lager is also useful for controlling slugs and no need to buy the expensive stuff either as it seems they are not to fussy


https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/what-best-way-trapping-slugs

Preference for beer types
The encouraging message from this trial was that slugs were just as attracted to the cheapest types of lager as they were to the more expensive brands. Although bitter has been touted as being a more attractive than lager, there was little evidence for this here or elsewhere. In this trial, bitter and lager caught similar numbers of slugs. After a period of 3 – 4 days, beer traps caught, on average, 5 – 6 slugs. These are quite low numbers, and reflect the extremely long dry season.

Average number of slugs caught ( water ) 0.1 ( larger) 6.4 ( Bitter) 5.3


Very few slugs were caught in the water, compared to the beer. It is thought to be the combination of volatiles, and yeast that attract the slugs, and the alcohol content has been shown to have little bearing on effectiveness.2

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dadams2k11 said:

Salt. Job done.

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Herr Tubthumper said:

Very funny. The April Fool on the Albion website was good . It made a reference to a Paul Barber Tweet Paul Barber, in just140 characters….as it Had me laughing though.

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Wardy's twin said:

never used them and have always managed to keep a pretty colourful garden...

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zefarelly said:

Hedgehogs and frogs ?

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Wardy's twin said:

Funnily enough slugs aren't a big part of the hedgehog diet but yes I have a good population of frogs, newts & slow worms in the garden. We also seem to have quite a few leopard slugs as well.

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zefarelly said:

We had a major slug infestation a few years ago, I wasted 2 cans of punk IPA and caught loads . . . but the ****ers just slid off half cut . . . . . so I rounded them up with the help of a trained herding hedgehog and introduced half a bag of dishwasher salt. . . . nailed it.

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MJsGhost said:

Outdoor use of metaldehyde to be banned to protect wildlife https://www.gov.uk/government/news/outdoor-use-of-metaldehyde-to-be-banned-to-protect-wildlife

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