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7 ways to get rid of slugs and snails in the garden

If you have a garden, you know how frustrating it can be to have slugs and snails ruining your plants. Luckily, there are some effective ways to get rid of these pests without needing to resort to harsh chemicals. In this post, you can find seven easy, natural, and sustainable strategies for clearing your garden of slugs and snails. These include introducing natural predators, creating physical barriers, hand-picking them, switching to slug-resistant plants, increasing the number of native plants, applying diatomaceous earth, and using a beer trap. With these simple tricks, you can restore order to your garden and keep your greenery secure!

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In this article, we will show you how to get rid of snails and slugs. These pests can cause the death of the harvest of tomatoes, cabbage, strawberries, carrots, peas and other vegetables and berries, so the fight against them becomes one of the main tasks of the gardener during the entire summer season..

7 ways to get rid of slugs and snails in the garden

Often summer residents and owners of private houses underestimate the harm from slugs and snails. They are nocturnal creatures, almost invisible, so many owners do not even suspect that a gluttonous pest has settled next to them. Meanwhile, slugs go hunting every night, leaving such unpleasant traces of their activity as damaged vegetables and berries.

In addition, slugs and snails spoil the presentation of the crop, leaving their unpleasant marks on ripe tomatoes or strawberries. In addition, damaged vegetables become defenseless against various diseases, and the mollusks themselves perfectly transfer mushroom spores from garden to garden, infecting the crop.

In this regard, it is simply necessary to fight slugs. In this article, we have collected different ways to protect your garden from harmful shellfish in order to briefly talk about their effectiveness, advantages and disadvantages..

Prevention

Slugs are very fond of wet and dark places, so for the purpose of prevention, you should get rid of possible hiding places for these pests. For example, boards on paths between the beds, stones, large clods of earth, plant roots, garbage heaps. You can also loosen the soil every time you water. And in early spring, it is imperative to dig or fluff the soil deep enough to destroy the eggs that mollusks usually lay at a depth of 5-8 centimeters or under the same stones and boards lying on the ground.

  • Pros – slugs and snails with a high degree of probability will not appear at all.
  • Cons – the risk that pests can enter the garden, for example, from a neighboring plot, the owners of which did not take preventive measures, still exists.
  • Efficiency – 3 (on a five-point scale).

Manual collection

The good old way to kill pests is to pick by hand. It is better to collect slugs with gloves or tweezers, going around their favorite places in the early morning – near a street tap, summer shower, under the porch – where it is dark and humid. It is worth walking between the beds – suddenly someone did not have time to crawl into a corner for a day’s rest.

  • Pros – the method does not require material costs, environmentally friendly and simple.
  • Cons – manual assembly is the most time consuming method, requiring significant effort and time.
  • Efficiency – 4.

7 ways to get rid of slugs and snails in the garden There are several types of slugs, but manual assembly is a fairly effective way to deal with most of them.

Building “barricades”

That is, we simply do not allow pests to move between the beds and plants. For example, we mulch the ground between the beds with straw, coarse sand, make grooves and fill it with ash, a mixture of ash and tobacco dust, lime, a mixture of ash, salt and ground pepper, egg or nut shells, preventing pests from reaching vegetables. The abdomen of mollusks is tender, so they simply cannot crawl anywhere. You can also place plastic gutters with water between the rows – the mollusks either cannot overcome the obstacle or drown, which, in fact, is what you wanted.

  • Pros – quite simple and less laborious method than manual assembly.
  • Cons – often slugs find refuge under the mulch, so it will have to be periodically shaken up and changed.
  • Efficiency – 4.

7 ways to get rid of slugs and snails in the garden These box beds will be a reliable protection for vegetables. It will be difficult for slugs to get over such a barrier.

We attract natural helpers

For example, toads, hedgehogs and birds, which love tender slugs and snails. We build a small pond for toads and frogs, and for birds – starlings, blackbirds, jays, wagtails – birdhouses. Hedgehogs can be attracted by building a house for them for the winter, simply from boards or sawn tree branches, and by placing a saucer of milk in the garden.

  • Pros – you yourself will not have to deal with pests, I will do everything with natural helpers.
  • Cons – hedgehogs may not settle on the site, especially if your private house is located in the city center, and the birds cannot fly, so the construction of birdhouses and a house will remain a waste of work.
  • Efficiency – 3.

7 ways to get rid of slugs and snails in the garden Slugs are one of the favorite treats of hedgehogs, so if their family has settled in your garden, you can simply forget about slugs and snails.

Setting up traps

Slugs love beer, so you can soak the leaves of burdock or other plants in dark beer and spread them between the beds, and harvest the pests in the morning. You can simply cut the plastic beer bottle and bury it in the ground so the slugs can climb in, but not get out. Also, shellfish are attracted to dog food.

  • Pros – simple, effective, does not require much effort, and all costs are in the purchase of a bottle of beer or packaging of feed.
  • Cons – there are no downsides to beer traps, but by scattering dog food between the beds, you can attract local mongrels who will simply trample everything.
  • Efficiency – 5.

7 ways to get rid of slugs and snails in the garden

Spices

Plant herbs such as sage, rosemary, laurel, garlic, or parsley around the perimeter of the beds. Their smell will scare away slugs and snails..

  • Pros – in addition to protective functions, you will also get a harvest of parsley or garlic.
  • Cons – some site owners note that slugs and snails freely cross the “fragrant barrier” of herbs.
  • Efficiency – 3.

7 ways to get rid of slugs and snails in the garden Parsley, sage and other herbs with their aroma can scare away gastropod pests

We use chemistry

Today there is such an effective remedy as “Meta” (“Thunderstorm”). In addition to the main active substance – metaldehyde – it contains substances that attract pests and at the same time scare birds away. The preparation is in the form of blue granules, which should be scattered between the beds or in places where slugs accumulate. The pests attracted by the drug will surely slide down to their last supper. One 15-gram sachet of Meta is enough to treat five square meters of land. The action of the drug lasts for 14-21 days. Usually, two treatments are enough to completely defeat slugs..

  • Pros – simple, effective and convenient, requires almost no effort.
  • Cons – metaldehyde is dangerous for pets and people, so vegetables and berries will have to be washed very carefully afterwards, as well as keeping cats and dogs away from the area where the chemical granules are scattered.
  • Efficiency – 5.

7 ways to get rid of slugs and snails in the garden “Groza” is the Russian name for the famous Swiss drug “Meta”

As you can see, the owners, whose site suffers from an invasion of slugs or snails, have a wide selection of means and methods of dealing with them. Usually, the owners turn to chemistry after more environmentally friendly methods have not given a noticeable effect..

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Comments: 3
  1. Oakley

    How effective are these methods in actually getting rid of slugs and snails? Are there any tips or tricks to maximize their efficiency?

    Reply
  2. Penelope Clarke

    How effective are the suggested methods in getting rid of slugs and snails? Are there any additional tips or techniques that have proven successful in keeping these pests away from the garden?

    Reply
    1. Addison Dawson

      The suggested methods for getting rid of slugs and snails, such as using barriers, traps, or natural predators like ducks and toads, can be effective to some extent. However, these methods may not completely eradicate the pests from the garden. Some additional tips that have proven successful include reducing moisture in the garden by avoiding overwatering, removing debris and hiding spots like rocks or boards where slugs and snails can hide, and using organic mulch like crushed eggshells, coffee grounds, or diatomaceous earth to create a deterrent barrier. Additionally, planting slug-resistant plants and regularly inspecting and hand-picking slugs and snails can also help keep these pests at bay.

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