Snails and Slugs
Snails become dormant in cold and dry weather, sealing themselves into their shells. They can remain this way for years and will reemerge to eat your garden as soon as the weather conditions are right. Each snail has both male and female sex organs and lays 100 eggs at a time that take three weeks to hatch.
As snails love dark damp places to hide, the best way to deter them is to keep your garden as free from places they can hide as possible. Old pots, planks, rocks, piles of prunings and the compost heap are all places they love. Keep citrus trimmed off the ground as snails will happily hop on to any leaves that touch the ground and strangely, eat the citrus peel from the fruit. It is much easier to put up a snail barrier around the trunk. All the wild and overgrown or crowded areas of the garden is where they will gather. By creating paths from materials snails hate, it is possible to isolate them in areas. They will not cross dry surfaces nor anything sharp. My grandfather used cinders from the coal fire as paths in his garden.
Snail soup and grandchildren
The first line of defence for snails has always been picking off by hand. This is fine if you have time or grandchildren you can pay per snail collected. They are then fed to the chickens, who adore them or can be turned into a smally fermented dead snail soup which can be sprayed onto your plants. Why anyone would want to do this is beyond me. I tried it once and didn't make it as far as straining as the smell was so toxic. I have a friend who is a Buddhist and a gardener and she collects hers and sets them free in the local park. I'm not so sure in the karma involved here!
Ducks
Ducks love snails, slugs and slaters but they also love soft green vegetables. If you let them free range for a couple of hours every now and again, they will keep the snails under control with minimum damage. Don’t be tempted to tread on them as it is said that their eggs will survive if they are squashed on a damp surface. This could be an old wives tale.
Barriers
Snails and slugs hate to travel across sharp surfaces. These include wood ash, fine sharp grit or sand, crushed eggshells and sandpaper but these all need frequent replenishing and I would only recommend them for fragile new seedlings. Seedlings can also be protected with waxed milk cartons. Cut the base off and push down over the seedling. Do check inside them every couple of days, if a snail does get in, it will eat the lot.
Traps
If you can spare it, beer is the best snail bait. Place in a steep sided container set into the ground. The snails will be enticed into the brew and drown. The disadvantages are that the beer is quickly diluted in wet weather and needs topping up. If you don't empty the container regularly the snails will piggy bach their dead brothers to have a drink and then slide away again.
Citrus peel halves left over from juicing will trap slugs, snails and slaters. Once they have hopped in and are busy eating, I throw the lot into the chicken pen.
Peppers
Two years ago I made snail ‘peppers’, a witchy Bio Dynamic preparation involving cremation, the grinding of ash and the making of a homeopathic tincture when the planets were in certain positions. I won’t go into here, contact your local BD Society for precise explanations. I will say that in a year when the snails had reached plague proportions (I had been ‘picking’ up to fifty a day) it made a stunning impact. After spraying twice, the snail numbers reduced dramatically and haven’t been seen in huge numbers since. It is really worth the effort.
Pellets
The most efficient and safe way I have found to control them is with bird and pet safe snail pellets. These contain a small amount of iron chelate which the snails ingest. It binds them up and they die of constipation. As the amount is very small, other creatures are not affected. Scatter about two pellets per square metre, in the evening. They seem to work best on damp soil but dissolve in the rain. Two or three applications should keep them under control. You need to store these in a tin as rats and mice love them. I tried a glass jar but they soon discovered that a jar can be pushed off a shelf and smashed. I have to lock my dogs away when spreading these as they will seek them out and eat them.
As snails love dark damp places to hide, the best way to deter them is to keep your garden as free from places they can hide as possible. Old pots, planks, rocks, piles of prunings and the compost heap are all places they love. Keep citrus trimmed off the ground as snails will happily hop on to any leaves that touch the ground and strangely, eat the citrus peel from the fruit. It is much easier to put up a snail barrier around the trunk. All the wild and overgrown or crowded areas of the garden is where they will gather. By creating paths from materials snails hate, it is possible to isolate them in areas. They will not cross dry surfaces nor anything sharp. My grandfather used cinders from the coal fire as paths in his garden.
Snail soup and grandchildren
The first line of defence for snails has always been picking off by hand. This is fine if you have time or grandchildren you can pay per snail collected. They are then fed to the chickens, who adore them or can be turned into a smally fermented dead snail soup which can be sprayed onto your plants. Why anyone would want to do this is beyond me. I tried it once and didn't make it as far as straining as the smell was so toxic. I have a friend who is a Buddhist and a gardener and she collects hers and sets them free in the local park. I'm not so sure in the karma involved here!
Ducks
Ducks love snails, slugs and slaters but they also love soft green vegetables. If you let them free range for a couple of hours every now and again, they will keep the snails under control with minimum damage. Don’t be tempted to tread on them as it is said that their eggs will survive if they are squashed on a damp surface. This could be an old wives tale.
Barriers
Snails and slugs hate to travel across sharp surfaces. These include wood ash, fine sharp grit or sand, crushed eggshells and sandpaper but these all need frequent replenishing and I would only recommend them for fragile new seedlings. Seedlings can also be protected with waxed milk cartons. Cut the base off and push down over the seedling. Do check inside them every couple of days, if a snail does get in, it will eat the lot.
Traps
If you can spare it, beer is the best snail bait. Place in a steep sided container set into the ground. The snails will be enticed into the brew and drown. The disadvantages are that the beer is quickly diluted in wet weather and needs topping up. If you don't empty the container regularly the snails will piggy bach their dead brothers to have a drink and then slide away again.
Citrus peel halves left over from juicing will trap slugs, snails and slaters. Once they have hopped in and are busy eating, I throw the lot into the chicken pen.
Peppers
Two years ago I made snail ‘peppers’, a witchy Bio Dynamic preparation involving cremation, the grinding of ash and the making of a homeopathic tincture when the planets were in certain positions. I won’t go into here, contact your local BD Society for precise explanations. I will say that in a year when the snails had reached plague proportions (I had been ‘picking’ up to fifty a day) it made a stunning impact. After spraying twice, the snail numbers reduced dramatically and haven’t been seen in huge numbers since. It is really worth the effort.
Pellets
The most efficient and safe way I have found to control them is with bird and pet safe snail pellets. These contain a small amount of iron chelate which the snails ingest. It binds them up and they die of constipation. As the amount is very small, other creatures are not affected. Scatter about two pellets per square metre, in the evening. They seem to work best on damp soil but dissolve in the rain. Two or three applications should keep them under control. You need to store these in a tin as rats and mice love them. I tried a glass jar but they soon discovered that a jar can be pushed off a shelf and smashed. I have to lock my dogs away when spreading these as they will seek them out and eat them.
Wildlife
I have a few wild visitors to my garden that help with snails and slugs. I have felt a little more kindly towards the kookaburra who stalks my fish after seeing him smashing a large brown snail on a rock before eating it. Our resident blue tongue lizard also enjoys them while stealing the odd tomato. I gave up growing strawberries in the ground years ago as he would eat them all, stealing them just a they ripened.
The 6000 species of native snails will not harm your garden plants as they prefer rotting material. The Strangesta species are carnivorous and like to eat exotic snails. Unfortunately, they don't breed as fast as the common brown snail.
