Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Chatting => Frugal Living => Topic started by: Jeanieblue on May 14, 2007, 08:16
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Have a supply of less than wild life friendly slug pellets in the garage, so am using half pop bottles buried in the ground - where the slugs can get at them, but hopefully nothing else - so far have caught quite a few. What's the safest way to dispose of the resulting yuck though - can I put it on the compost heap - although I guess it could kill off any slugs lurking there - would that be such a bad thing?
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:?: but then the harmful metaldehydes would be "in circulation" as it were.
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Slugs are an important part of the decomposition process in the garden so the only safe place for them in my garden is the compost heap, I wouldn't put your goo in there, you could always dig a small hole a drop the goo into it, keep it covered with a brick to stop wildlife getting to it.
Not all slug pellets contain metaldehydes some contain methiocarb instead.
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Not all slug pellets contain metaldehydes some contain methiocarb instead.
Also thiodicarb, although that's mostly used in agricultural preparations rather than commercially available horticultural pellets.
Interestingly, metaldehyde was only found to kill the little * by accident in the 1930s - it's the main constituent of "Meta" solid fuel. It's harmless to other invertebrates (worms, beetles etc) but highly toxic to vertebrates (frogs, birds etc).
Methiocarb was introduced in the 60s, and that's actually an insecticide - it acts as a stomach poison.
Before these were discovered, inorganics such as copper sulphate, aluminium sulphate, calcium arsenate (nice!), potassium chloride, iron sulphate and Paris green were used, but metaldehyde remains the most effective slug poison available.
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Whoops, I er um already dumped the first lot on the compost heap. So, hopefully, it will degenerate? Or maybe I ought to go down and dig it out, I know just where it is !!! Checked the tub - it contains 3% ww metaldehyde.