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Tips On Dealing With Slugs And Snails In The Garden
By Fran Barnwell, Fri Dec 9th
Want to know how to start gardening? Confused where to start?Let Fran help you with easy to follow tips and advice. Thisarticle gives practical suggestions on how to minimise slug andsnail damage in your garden! One of the most common problems faced by gardeners is the one ofslugs and snails. Even experienced gardeners tear theircollective hair out at the destruction these creatures cancause. So I thought I would give you a few tried and testedtips, and some others perhaps not so well known, to help youdeal with them - you won't get rid of them all together, but atleast you will be able to keep them under some sort of control! They may not all work for you - a lot depends on just how badthe problem is where you live - but it is certainly worth tryingsome if not all of them.
Barriers: These methods will be more effective against snails than slugs,as slugs live in the ground and can therefore avoid barriers. On your garden borders, you can use barriers around plants, suchas crushed eggshells, grit, bran, or wood-ash or soot. Thetheory is that slugs and snails are reluctant to cross thesematerials and will therefore wander off elsewhere to look fortheir next meal. Make sure you put plenty down without any gaps. Scatter oat bran around your plants - slugs love it, but if theyeat enough, they expand and die! Petroleum jelly smeared thickly around the rims of pots has asimilar deterrent effect. You can purchase copper tape with an adhesive backing, which youcan stick around the pot sides - this gives the snail a smallelectric shock as it tries to cross. Traps: Use traps - very effective at dealing with both slugs andsnails, and you can buy these from a garden centre. Place thetrap, filled with cheap beer, in a hole with the top at soillevel. You can also use out of date fruit juice, or even milkjust about on the turn. Alternatively, make your own by cuttingoff about 3-4 inches off the base of a plastic drinks bottle. After eating your
half grapefruit, cut a small hole and placethe skin upside down on the soil. Slugs love it and willcongregate inside and each day you can collect them up. Collect all the slugs and snails you can find in the lateevening, when they start to become active and drown them in abucket of heavily salted water. Plain water will not work - theywill simply swim to the surface and crawl out! Or, if you knowwhere they hide out, you can gather them up during the day - trylooking under logs or bricks, and shrubs, any dark, damp corner. And what to do with the slugs you've collected? If you put liveslugs or snails into your compost heap, they will probably staythere, as there is plenty of matter for them to feast on. Youcan also put the dead ones in there too, those in the trapsincluding the - but scoop the dead slugs and snails out ofthe salty water first. Predators: For a biological control, you can use nematodes - microscopicparasites that kill the slugs above and below ground. Obtainedfrom organic garden suppliers, you simply mix the powder withwater and spray on to the soil using a watering can. This can beeffective for around six weeks. If you are lucky enough to have the space, adopt some chickensor ducks - they just love eating slugs - and you can have somefree eggs into the bargain. Make your garden wildlife friendly, to encourage the naturalpredators of slugs and snails to come and visit. Dig a pond toencourage frogs and toads; leave out food for hedgehogs; and putup bird feeders. This will not provide an 'instant fix' for theproblem, but in the long term will give you a healthier gardenwith fewer pests. Till next time, happy slug hunting! About the author:Fran Barnwell is a self-taught gardener, learning throughexperience in her own garden. Fran understands the difficultiesthat face new gardeners, and has written The Ultimate Guide toGardening for Beginners, a successful eBook that helps anyonenew to gardening to get started, explaining the basics in easyto understand terms. To find out more and to sign up to receivea free series of articles, go to http://www.NewToGardening.com
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