I have posted this method in other places on garden.org previously, but though that it might interest some on here as well. There is never just one method to kill slugs, different strategies are often needed, but currently using feeding stations filled with slug pellets is my favorite. This is more environmental friendly and much more economical than placing the pellets on the ground as the pellets are protected and virtually nothing goes to waste.
The feeding stations are simply a small box with some ventilation holes and an opening on the side, large enough for a slug to enter, but small enough to keep most other animals out. It will eat pellets until its full and then crawl away and die somewhere else. I use an iron phosphate based pellet called Ferramol, I believe this is called Sluggo in the US. 15-20 pellets is recommended to start with to see if the area is a good one for a feeding station. More can be used if there are many slugs, but too much may cause the pellets to mold and they will loose their effectiveness.
Sorry, this is in Swedish but you can look at how one of these pre-made feeding stations look like here:
https://www.snigelshopen.se/sn... . Overpriced and not available to most of you, but if you look at the pictures you should easily be able to do your own from a suitable plastic box. Just perhaps dull the edges a bit on the entry hole so it isn't too sharp.
The moisture in the night air should be sufficient to release the scent from the bait and lure the slugs. Possible exceptions would perhaps be a very arid climate, but then slugs hopefully aren't a super big problem. A stone on top works well to secure the lid and keep other animals out of the box for me, but you might need other methods if local wildlife or pets is very inquisitive.
Slugs have a tendency to follow the slime trails of other slugs so you may find the effectiveness of these boxes to actually increase over time until you exhausted the local slug population. The problem with pellets in a box is the same as for pellets directly on the ground, sometimes the plants you try to protect are more desirable than the bait, so they will go after them instead or they simply refuse to abandon the protected spot they are already in. Small slugs are often also reluctant to move around in my experience. So some hand picking might still be necessary, especially in the beginning.
If you have an open compost its a really good idea to place a few boxes there as well. For me its actually a corner stone in my slug fighting strategy. Sooner or later almost all slugs find their way to the compost heap and when they do, they will also find the pellets and it's lights out.
I have handpicked thousands of slugs over the years and I'm well aware about the controversy regarding some of the additives in slug pellets. There is a possibility that these can be harmful to other garden inhabitants than slugs, but this way much less ends up in the wrong places. This is not a recommendation to use slug pellets, of course it's better if you don't need to, but if you decide that it becomes necessary, you are at least aware that there is a more environmentally friendly and cost effective way to use them.
I haven't tried different brands of slug bait, but I suspect the method would work for many other brands as well. Just don't use any of the very dangerous ones that kills slugs instantly. Besides being very harmful, they wouldn't work well with this method anyway as the feeding stations would simply fill up with dead slugs and become useless in a very short time.
