Snails and slugs are eating away all the leaves of your kitchen or backyard garden! You went to your garden early in the morning and saw that the tomato and cabbage plants, which are a few weeks old, have holes and webs in the leaves from being eaten. They attack your garden at night and can destroy everything from young green leaves to one-and-a-half-foot tall plants. From my experience, I have learned how to protect and get rid of slugs and snails in the garden. Take your time and read carefully.
Snails and slugs are very active in gardens during spring because fresh crops and vegetables are grown. A tree damaged by snails and slugs becomes almost impossible to restore. They are more attracted to the garden’s green plants and come back repeatedly, potentially destroying your garden if you don’t manage or prevent them at the right time.
March-may is the spring season in America. Insects and pests, including slugs and snails, become active during spring. The fall season begins in America from September to November, when slugs and snails lay their eggs. It is known that they can lay 250-500 eggs in a year. Their eggs are white and oval with a 2-3 mm diameter. Species of slugs and snails in America contain BCHA. They are available in various sizes, shapes, and colours in nature and your garden or lawn. An estimated 200-220 species of slugs and snails are across the northern, central, and southern regions. You can identify them by looking at the two antennae on their heads, which look like aliens.
InĀ AmericanĀ gardens,Ā slugsĀ andĀ snailsĀ canĀ beĀ foundĀ inĀ theĀ followingĀ species:
- Slugs: Leopard Slug, Gray Field Slug, Banana Slug, Black Slug.
- Snails: Garden (brown or European), apple snails, white-lipped snails, and Roman snails.
You will often see them roaming around your garden.
Slugs or snails are active at night because they have no legs. They move from one side to the other on their bodies, and their bodies contain liquid glue with the ability to grow long. If they move during the day, their body fluids can dry up in the sun, and they cannot move quickly, increasing the chance of being caught by predators; because of this, snails or slugs gather in your garden at night and consider your garden to be their dining room.
Are snails and slugs the same?
No, they are not the same, but they are closely related. Both belong to the class Gastropoda. Their body structure is similar; they have muscular legs, and their heads have tentacles and radula. They are both bio-digestible and decomposing; different animal feeds are identical but different. Snails have a shell that requires them to move more slowly than slugs. Slugs, on the other hand, have no shells. Snails are mostly found in habitats and near gardens, while slugs are primarily terrestrial; some species are also aquatic. Slugs are very flexible, but snails have shells and can hide inside to protect themselves, which slugs cannot.
From the discussion above, we can hopefully recognize slugs and snails. Now, we will discuss how to keep them out of the garden.
1. Search and understand
We learned from the nature of slugs and snails that they roam your garden at night. Remember to visit your garden a few hours after sunset and bring a torch. If you search around raised beds, under plants, and on the backs of leaves, you’ll find they’ve been there before you arrived. They can run from 0.002 to 0.007 miles per hour. They come to eat vegetables from the bushes around your garden.
2. Push by hand
Remove snails and slugs by hand before they feed on your garden and vegetables. Wear gloves before you spread your hands. Although catching with bare hands seems easy and safe, the possible risks should be avoided. Some snails or slugs can carry salmonella bacteria that can cause human gastrointestinal illness. However, you can kill them by picking them up from your gardening bed or putting them in your compost bin. Snails or slugs help in making organic compost.
3. Use of chopped pulses
You can alternate several layers of cuttings around the new seedlings in your raised bed. You can close the cut branches around the seedlings so that slugs and snails cannot pass through their soft bodies, and even if they do, you can remove them from there. You can use a cherry tree, peace tree, palm tree, rose of Sharon, Japanese maple topiary tree, willow tree, privet, or Leyland cypress tree.
4. Pouring water into the container
Many vegetable beds are raised rather than low (see picture to understand), so it is convenient to work and easy to observe the vegetables. Also, if you have a raised table in your garden where you plant from seed, you can put a small container on the legs or poles of these tables and fill the container with water. Slugs or snails will not be able to get on the table because of the water and will not be able to get to your plants. Some snails and slugs can float in water, but you should take this step to identify them if you want to know about the snails and slugs in the garden area. If you find that they are around water or submerged in water, you know that the mosquitoes and slugs in your aquarium cannot live in water, and you can continue using this method.
5. Mulching containers or pots
Just because snails or slugs are more attracted to saplings doesn’t mean they won’t feed on larger plants. However, the tendency to eat seedlings and young stems is high. If you are growing seasonal vegetables in your garden or small greenhouse and looking to protect the newly planted seedlings from snails and slugs, I recommend mulching the pots. Many people use eggshells for two reasons: eggshells are a source of organic fertilizer (calcium), and they release calcium slowly over a long period, which is very beneficial for the soil and can be a tool to protect against snails. The parts of the eggshell are very sharp, which can deter slugs and snails. Apart from eggshells, you can use bark, ash, coco chips, and sea oyster flakes. Use these to cover the topsoil of the plants; snails and slugs will not be able to reach your plants by digging through them.
6. Trap method
The trap method is easy and popular for keeping snails and slugs away from your garden area. Listening to the trap method, you may think you will practice some difficulty or creativity, but this is untrue. This trap method is only a way to fool snails and slugs. When I bring grapefruit to my house, I collect its peels. My cousins’ house is next to ours, and I tell them that when grapefruit is brought to their house, they should collect its peels. They give me the peels. I always take the peels and keep them next to the garden beds and the bushes. After 2-3 days, I check in the morning and see that snails and slugs have taken refuge there. I take the peel and don’t kill the snails but throw them away in the forest. You can try this. Also, you can place discarded wood or plastic at various places in your garden, such as near shrubs, in front of vegetable beds, in wet areas, and where there is a watering tap so snails and slugs can hide under it. My grandfather had an old shoebox, the wood of which I stripped and kept near my bed. Snails and slugs sit under it, and I get them easily. A few days ago, I saw a video on Instagram by a gardening expert (the ID was verified). He took two terracotta pots, one 4 inches, and another 6 inches. He placed the 6-inch pot on top of the 4-inch one (with the drainage hole on top). He left a small piece of brick at the bottom of the 6-inch pot so that it did not touch the soil, allowing snails or slugs to hide inside during the day. The next day, he checked them and found that the snails and slugs near his bed were hidden. I have not used this tub method in the garden, but it would work. You can use unused pots in your house to make traps.
7. Seedlings surrounded by bottles
I always plant vegetables at home, which gives me new experiences. I don’t like buying from nurseries, so I plant them at home with a little time and effort. However, when I plant seedlings in outdoor beds or containers at home, I cover them with medium-sized bottles. So that slugs cannot attack.
Here’s how I prepare the bottle:
First, I take a 5000 ml bottle and cut the bottom to an inch round. Then, the top of the bottle (where the mouth is) has a small leak around it to ensure oxygen exchange and air circulation inside the plants. After that, I put the bottle on top of the seedling, made a hole in the bottom of the bottle a little deep (half an inch), and covered the sides with soil to prevent snails or slugs from getting inside. This is how I protect my newly planted seedlings from snails.
8. Watering routine
I used to water the garden twice a day, but now I water it once in the morning. Many may say that watering plants once a day can dry them out in the heat of summer and lead to wilting or wilting of plants. But I say the tree will not die. If you water the plants in the garden in the late afternoon or early evening, the soil will stay moist and stay wet overnight. Snails and slugs love damp and humid places because it is easy for them to move. Change your watering routine if you are watering in the afternoon or evening. Wet beds invite snails and slugs.
9. Uses beer
Do snails or slugs drink beer? It seems strange to hear. No, we will not feed them beer, but we will kill them. You can do this if you are fed up with snails in your vegetable garden at home. My gardener friend Rick has a pond near his house from where the slugs and snails come to Rick’s garden. Rick decides to kill them with beer. He takes an old dog food container, digs a hole in the ground, and sets the container in it, filling it with beer. Rick covers it with a log to keep animals and his pet dog away so beneficial animals won’t eat it. The next morning, Rick finds several dead snails inside. But Rick told me he had to clean it regularly. Also tells me that the price of beer increases the cost of his gardening, yet he is happy to kill snails and slugs with this method and uses it again and again.
I think the beer trap might be a bit expensive for you, but it works. If you can’t get rid of slugs and snails using other methods, I recommend you use this method.
10. Do not keep the garden clean and wet
I always keep my garden clean and maintain a watering routine. I don’t keep shrubs around the garden but try to remove them as quickly as possible. I don’t wet wood chips on raised beds; being wet and damp invites snails and slugs. I regularly replace geo bags, plastic pots, and raised beds in my backyard garden and clean underneath. Snails and slugs hide under it, so I watch and change places every few days. This makes it easy for me to keep slugs away from the fresh vegetables in my beds.
Depending on the region of the Americas, the rainy season lasts from late June to September. But it can start in late June or even July if you live in Mexico or Arizona. However, due to the rain in your garden at this time, snails and slugs become more active. You should monitor the garden more now so that the pests do not damage your garden.
Snails and slugs attach to the material fibers and help in organic decomposition. But they are harmful to our garden. They can transform a bed overnight. I highly recommend incorporating as many methods as possible into your garden without focusing on one method, as I do. As a result, if they get through one of the methods, the other becomes a barrier for them. Neither you nor I know which method will be 100% effective at protecting your fresh lettuce leaves. Use as many methods as you can. Apart from these 10 methods, you can repel them by spraying ferric phosphate, caffeine, bran, or garlic mix. You can also create a natural ecosystem. Some herbs like lavender, rosemary, thyme, sage, and mint can keep snails and slugs away. Try a mixed method instead of just one to see if you can eliminate snails and slugs.
