I've not found the one or two huge slugs that I had sometimes encountered for years in the yard however. Anyway I decided I needed to do some control (other than manual), so I found a product called Slug Magic which is completely safe for pets (and other critters) and can be used on fruits and veggies, etc. The active ingredient is iron phosphate and it works by attracting slugs/snails so they eat it and it subsequently causes them to stop feeding. It's a pellet form and can be placed under plants and around their hiding places at rocks and garden edging. I found it very effective -- although it does need to be reapplied depending on rainfall etc. and I've had to place it around here and there 3-4 times this year.So, the pellets that are not ingested are biodegraded to iron and and phosphate -- both of which are plant nutirents/soil supplements of the good kind. However, I don't want tooooooo much of a good thing, i.e. I don't want to over-fertilize the plants with too much iron or phosphorus. So my question here is whether anyone else has used this product and if so, what effects if any did they observe on their plants? It's only a 1% concentration of iron phosphate, which seems pretty low, but most iron supplements are very low concentration anyway.
The same company (can I mention it here?) also makes a Bug and Slug Killer , which contains both iron phosphate and a spinosad insecticide to address cutworms, earwigs, ants, and snails and slugs. Also a VERY safe alternative to the older and nasty, nasty slug control chemicals that were highly dangerous to pets, etc. I could probably stand to do a little earwig control this year also, but so far, have just tried to ignore them. I haven't checked other companies, but if one manufacturer is using iron phosphate, then my guess is that others are also, so maybe someone out there has used another branded product that is basically the same things. Just wondering what effects the extra nutrients may be having on their hostas.
Any thoughts?
Other wise... it Works great