Environmentally Friendly Snail and Slug Control for the Garden

Slugs and snails are called gastropods, meaning belly footed creatures. They can inflict major damage to the garden and are prolific breeders. It is important to control them in order to have a productive garden.

Barriers to Keep Slugs and Snails Away From Plants in the Garden

A simple solution for control is to create a barrier. Slugs and snails like a smooth surface to glide over so deter them by making a rough barrier around plants. Spread the materials around vulnerable plants making sure there are no gaps. Try some of the following recycled goods.

• Crushed egg shells
• Gravel
• Crushed oyster shells or any other crushed shells.
• Coffee grounds
• Sharp sand
• Cinders

Natural Predators in the Garden

Frogs, lizards and birds eat slugs and snails so why not encourage these helpful creatures into the garden.

• Create a pond for the frogs and create a home for lizards. Make a wild garden with fallen leaves and stones for hiding under. This environment will also attract the snails but should keep them away from the rest of the garden.
• Encourage birds with a bird bath placed in an open, sunny space. To attract the birds set a sprinkler up to spray water around the bird bath. Once the birds know the bird bath is there they will return.

Protecting New Seedlings in the Garden from Slugs and Snails

New seedlings are especially vulnerable to attack from slugs and snails.

1. Protect seedlings by cutting the top and bottom off clear plastic bottles.
2. Place these tubes over the seedling, pushing them into the soil so the young plant is covered.
3. When the plant gets bigger remove the protective tube.

Organic Gardening With the Famous Beer Trap

Slugs and snails are attracted to beer, even if the beer is flat. The beer trap attracts them and they fall into the beer and drown.

Materials Required for Garden Beer Trap

• Beer
• Plastic cup
• Plastic flower-pot with a hole large enough for a snail to go through. It may be necessary to use cutters to enlarge the hole

How to Make a Beer Trap for the Environmentally Friendly Garden

1. Half fill the plastic cup with beer.
2. Bury the cup in soil near to plants that need protecting from slugs and snails. Do not bury the cup right down to soil level or beneficial insects may also get trapped. Allow about 1 cm above soil level.
3. Cover cup with upturned flower-pot. This also helps to stop beneficial insects from falling in.
4. Empty the cup as required and add more beer. Usually about every 3 days.

Environmentally Friendly Grapefruit Trap

Snails and slugs are attracted to the smell of the grapefruit and will congregate inside the upturned fruit.

1. Use half an empty grapefruit, hollowed out.
2. Cut a snail sized doorway to allow access.
3. Put next to plants, hollow side down
4. The next day pick up the grapefruit with snails inside and dispose.

Night Time Patrol for the Keen Eco Friendly Gardener

• Snails are most active on wet evenings. Use a torch to find and collect the snails.
• Put the slugs and snails into salty water.

A Garden to Deter Snails

• Snails and slugs like to hide in warm, dark, damp places. Keep the garden free from unnecessary clutter such as up turned pots, old wood and mess behind garden sheds.
• Keep long grass and weeds controlled and check for snails under the rims of pots.

Make barriers, encourage helpful wildlife, protect and keep the garden clear of possible hiding places in the eco – friendly garden. When the slugs and snails continue to be a problem try a beer trap, grapefruit trap or get out there and hunt them down. Being environmentally friendly in the garden need not be a chore with these garden ideas which only require a small amount of time and energy.

Source 1001 Hints and Tips For the Garden, Readers Digest, Sydney, Auckland 1998