How to Protect Your Plants From Slugs and Snails

Any gardener knows that the single biggest threat to plants is the humble slug or snail. Garden centres stock a wide range of traps and chemicals to fight these creatures, but this is a guide to frugal, free, and organic slug and snail deterrents. These tips are effective and easy to try out at home: the fight back starts today.

Frugal Beer Traps

The first and easiest way to trap slugs and snails is by beer trap. You can buy these traps at any garden centre but for frugal gardeners, they are easy to make at home. All you need is a shallow dish; an empty takeaway carton is ideal:

• Dig a hole in the soil near to your chosen plant, so that the rim is level with the soil
• Fill the dish with beer
• Make sure you do not fill it up to the brim, as they will drink from the side and not fall in
• Once submersed in the beer the slugs will happily drink themselves to death.

A second way is not for the faint hearted but is very effective. Go into your garden after it has rained, in the dark if possible. You need a torch and a bucket of saltwater solution. Search for the slugs, under leaves and pots. When you find them, put them into the bucket. The saltwater kills them and is free but be warned; it’s not nice to watch.

Anti-slug Barriers

In dry periods, a quick and effective barrier is to pour a circle of salt around a plant. The salt burns the slug when it encounters it. It will not kill them but it does make them stay away. Bear in mind when you water or it rains, the salt is washed into the soil. This is very much a stopgap solution.

Another simple and free barrier, which deters some but not all slugs, is crushed eggshells:

• After you have used your eggs put the eggshells in the bottom of the oven when you are cooking, so that the shells become brittle
• When they have cooled down, crush them finely so that they are sharp
• Sprinkle these generously in a circle around any vulnerable plants.

The slugs and snails do not like scratchy surfaces and will try to avoid slithering over them. As with the salt circle, rain or watering will wash the eggshells away, so you will need to reapply.

Organic Gardening Tips

Planting garlic, chives, or other alliums near vulnerable plants is traditionally reputed to help deter slugs and snails. They also traditionally avoid plants with heavily scented or scratchy leaves and plants of a blue hue.

Growing bird friendly plants and having bird feeders is an excellent way to encourage more wildlife into your garden. The birds will eat any slug or snail they see. The same is true for hedgehogs and frogs so anything you can do to encourage visits from these allies is to be encouraged. This is truly organic and frugal gardening.

Dig the soil around plants that the slugs and snails are attacking, and try to find them. Do not forget, they can and do eat plants from the roots up as well as the leaves. Look out for their lave, minute white eggs. Destroy these eggs immediately before they hatch. Whichever way you decide to battle slugs and snails, keep it organic and keep it up.

Crosbie, Duncan. Tips From The Old Gardeners, 2002, Past Times, Oxford.