Ugh slugs and snails
I planted broccoli, kale and lettuce for my fall garden. I caught two big African snails on my bench eating my thyme. I thought I took care of them. Then, my kale and then the broccoli seedilings started getting their tops chopped off. I went through the bench and found a colony of slugs in the roots of the pakalana. I repotted, but now the slugs are even worse and going after the other seedlings on the bench. I probably will have to replant the broccoli and kale, so far the slugs have been finding other things to munch on so they haven't gotten to the lettuce yet, but I know they will find it soon unless I can find out where the slugs are hiding.
It's the worst when they are IN the same or neighboring pots. Hope you get them!-
Lindsaylew82
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They get especially bad three weeks after a heavy rain. I think more of the eggs hatch then. I usually get a few of them every day I work out in the garden and even more the days after it rains. Iselle dropped some rain a couple of weeks ago, it wasn't enough to flood the streets but now I am seeing the increase in the slug and snail population. Slug bait is so expensive, but I need it.
I found a dead snail and a dead slug in my tray today and it doesn't look like any more tops are missing. I also was surprised by a 1 inch brown frog that jumped out of the tray. In the 20 years I have lived here it is the first frog I have seen. Since they eat insects and it is not a coqui, it is welcome as long as it does not make a regular habit of scaring me.
I thew out more slug bait again just to be sure.
I thew out more slug bait again just to be sure.
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applestar
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Food for thought --
In Upon Further Review…Iron Phosphate for Slugs and Snails
In Upon Further Review…Iron Phosphate for Slugs and Snails
https://blogs.extension.org/gardenprofes ... nd-snails/...whether those iron phosphate baits you can buy for slugs might also be toxic to earthworms. The answer is yes – they might. And not only that, these iron phosphate baits can also be toxic to other animals such as dogs.
How bad might these products be for dogs and earthworms you ask? I don't think anyone knows exactly, but to my knowledge this is the most recent paper on the subject [link]. And here’s an abstract on dog poisonings [link].
Now, based on the data I’ve seen on poisoning incidents, iron phosphate is less likely to poison your dog than its closest competitor, metaldehyde (though the iron phosphate seems more likely to hurt earthworms than the metaldehyde).
[...]
... I assumed that the compounds listed on the active ingredient list were really the only ingredients I needed to think about. Silly me. Just like Round-up, and almost any other pesticide you can name, there are other ingredients that help the active ingredients work — and that could cause issues. For Round-up, the soaps mixed in there to help the product stick can hurt frogs or other amphibians. For Iron phosphate, the extra ingredient that could do some damage is EDTA.
Any frog including the greenhouse frog I caught and and the coqui threaten the native species. I didn't have any native ones either. The coqui frog is another very tiny frog and they can drive you crazy. Every day from sunset till the wee hours of the morning all you hear is "co-key, co-key" The greenhouse frog chirps. I don't know where this frog came from.