Do i have to use slug pellets?

[Lalunya85]

I really don't want to.

We got our allotment plot last year and it was pretty overgrown. We cleared it a bit but the weeds kept coming hard and fast all throughout spring and I couldn't really keep on top of them! I partly blame this for the fact that the slugs ate all (!) my produce.

This year:
It's much clearer (though weeds will keep coming again I'm sure but I have every intention to do better with Weeding)
I am using broken egg shells around my peas (and other plants to come)
I might put some "slug pubs" next to courgettes and pumpkins and the like.

My mean neighbour walked up to me and asked whether I would be growing any actually veg this year. When I told him I would try, and mentioned the slugs last year, he laughed and said I had no chance of growing anything without pellets.

Is he right??

What are your slug repellents of choice?

P. S. We did get lovely tomatoes, some Beetroot, radish an plums as the slugs did t like those.

The organic pellets aren't tested in the same way.

I have read that fewer trials were required because of iron phosphate’s harmless nature in mammalian digestive systems. However, it is equally harmless to gastropods, so the only way it kills slugs is the addition of a chelating agent, EDTA, releasing the iron from the phosphate compound within the gut and causing iron poisoning. EDTA is not listed among the ingredients due to some unfortunate loophole, and EDTA itself apparently may affect wildlife.

I have hens, hedgehogs and masses of birds in my garden - I don't use any slug pellets.

Unless every allotment is using slug control, it seems pretty pointless. From their point of view, its a load of free lunches full of tasty young plants, so their numbers increase. Killing a few off here and there wont make much difference, there are plenty of others to take their place.