How to Control Garden Slugs and Snails

Slugs and snails are the bane of gardeners worldwide, but especially in damp climates. Nothing is more frustrating than working hard to get your garden going and coming out one morning to see your little seedlings eaten down to a stump.

Slugs are formidable foes. They are nocturnal and can often be difficult to locate during the day. They reproduce asexually and produce two to three dozen eggs several times a year. The slug eggs can hatch in ten days to three weeks and the slugs will reach maturity and start chomping down on your precious garden six weeks after they hatch.

The war against slugs in your garden will be constant and never ending. You won't ever win, but with some effort and perseverance you can do a lot to control the slug population and save your flowers and vegetables.

Eliminate Their Hide-Outs

After a night of garden pillaging, slugs retreat to their shady and damp hide-outs at dawn. Clean up your garden and you will eliminate many slug hiding places. Start by pulling weeds and removing any unwanted plants. Even dried leaves, which make wonderful garden mulch, will become slug havens once they start to compost, so clean them up and get them out of your garden.

Pick up any pieces of wood, flower pots or rocks and get them away from your precious garden plants. Slugs and snails love to hide under garden clutter because it stays damp, dark and cool during the daytime. Make sure your bushes are pruned and dead branches are removed. Keep your garden soil well cultivated. Even a dirt clod could protect a slug or snail during the day.

Kill weeds beneath decks to make them less appealing to slugs and snails. Finally, keep your lawn trimmed because even an overgrown edge could be a slug and snail shelter.

Block Access to Their Food Supply

There are several ways to discourage slugs and snails from approaching your plants in the first place. Cedar chips, placed around your plants will irritate the gelatinous underbellies of slugs and snails and dehydrate them as well. Broken egg shells placed around the base of your plants will also irritate and kill slugs who crawl over them.

Create barriers around your plants by sprinkling a circle of oat bran or lime. You can also use copper tape and place it around the base of your plant. The copper tape needs to be a couple of inches wide, and will only work if your plant is already slug free. If you trap slugs in your ring of copper, they will not be able to get out and will end up making your poor plant their bed and breakfast.

If you want to get more serious, you can purchase chemical products that are made specifically to deter and kill slugs and snails. However, many of these products can also be harmful to smaller animals and even children, so extreme caution should be taken when using chemical slug and snail baits. There are some which are safer than others, so read the label and follow all directions.

Search and Destroy

When you find slugs and snails, show no mercy. As disgusting as this may be, it is the only way to ensure they don't go back to devouring your plants. You can keep a "poker" in the garden for impaling slugs, or you can go on the hunt at dusk with a cup of soapy water. Simply pick off the slugs and snails by hand and drop them into your soapy water and leave them overnight to "think about what they've done!" They will be done thinking by morning, trust me.

There are several methods of baiting slugs and snails. One of my favorite is the "cheap beer method." Bury shallow tin cans or plastic cups in the ground so they are even with the ground level. Empty tuna cans or short sour cream containers work well for this trap. Fill the cans with cheap beer. In the morning, you will have a container full of dead slugs that can easily be emptied and reset the next evening.

Finally, you can use all your garden clutter to trap slugs and snails. Lay out an old board or an upturned clay pot. Each morning lift the board or pot to reveal slugs and snails. You can attack them with a salt shaker, hand pick them and drop them into your soapy water cup, or just smash them.

Controlling slugs and snails will give your garden the best chance it has to grow and thrive. Keep vigilant with your slug and snail war tactics and you will notice a decline in the slug population as well as an increase in the beauty of your garden.