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 beer 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 You can also use out of date fruit juice, or even milkjust about on the turn.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
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