Jul 17 2008
Slugs and Snails: Not a gardener’s friend
This year my vegetable garden has been under constant attack by snails. Usually, I am a “let bygones be bygones” but this year the snails have apparently been taking advantage of my usually generous nature. I can’t believe the number of snails that I pull out of the garden on the daily basis and I have gotten to the point where I have my kids hunt through the garden for the snails and deposit them in a completely different area.
Thankfully, I don’t have any slugs to worry about, at least none that I have found but for those of you who do, I decided to write a post on how to deal with both of those little critters.
There are several methods that you can use and it really depends on what you are up to. If you have kids that can navigate around your garden without doing more harm than good, I would strongly recommend having them stake out and collect those snails and slugs. Just don’t ask them to salt the slugs or anything. I did it once as a teen and bawled my eyes out while I apologized profusely as I tried to wash the salt of the slug. Yes, I wasn’t a seasoned gardener at that point.
Anyway, if you don’t want to use any products on snails or slugs there are a few things that you can do.
First, it is important to keep your garden clean and free of debris. Snails and slugs will usually hide during the day and they prefer to do so in moist shady areas. Weeds, old plant life or even flowerpots can be great places for these pests to hide. It is important to remove all the weeds, and dying plant life in your garden. Keep the area clear. Flowerpots should be checked for the pests or keep them in spaces where there is little access to the actual garden beds.
If your preventative care doesn’t work, there is always searching for those pesky visitors. The best time to do this is during the night when they are the most active. Go out with a flash light and if you are squeamish, a pair of gloves. Pick off any slugs or snails that you can find and relocate them. You don’t have to destroy them, just find them a new home in some secluded area (and no, that doesn’t mean your neighbors garden). I first experienced this method when I lived in a neighborhood that was basically the little “Italy” of my town. My neighbors were avid gardeners but every Sunday they would all dress like Good-fellas and go to mass. When I started seeing flashlights in their gardens at night, I started to believe that maybe we were living beside the mob and all sorts of nefarious things were occurring in their gardens at night. Of course, the only thing that was happening was my over active imagination (hey, I was only 19) and a bunch of avid gardeners searching for snails and slugs.
Now you might be like me and prefer to do other stuff during the night and there are other methods to dealing with snails and slugs. You can, of course, use pesticides in dealing with them. There are many products available and you could use slug pellets or slug deterrent gel on planters to control these pests.
If you prefer more organic methods to dealing with slugs and snails, one option is to spread egg shell mulch around your plants. This will deter them but it is not 100% effective. Other organic methods are to surround plants with wood-ash or lime or to use cut off bottles. To do this, you simply insert the bottle around the plant when it is small or cut off and then place the bottle into the ground.
Lastly, if you prefer to kill the snails or slugs, one of the most effective ways is to fill a bucket with water and add a thin layer of gasoline to the top. All you will need to do at that point is drop the snails or slugs into the bucket.
All the best,
Sirena Van Schaik
Related posts:
- Natural Ingenious Solutions to Save your Garden from Slugs and Snails
- Slugs and Snails and Other Gardening Tales – How to Get Rid of these Slimy Little Suckers
- Defining the Organic Gardener: The Challenges to Staying Chemical-free
- Common Orchid Pests
- Orchids – Common Orchid Pests
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Slugs and snails! Any gardner’s worst nightmare! So far I’ve been pretty lucky. The liriope ground cover I planted earlier this summer is still going strong.