Pest of the month - Snails and slugs

What's it look like?
Everyone recognises a snail or a slug when they see one. But often you don't see the critter before it's too late. Instead look for tell tale signs like shiny, silvery residue left on or near leafy vegetables. Often you are just left with a stump from a newly planted seedling when inspecting the garden in the morning or after rain.

What it attacks
Snails attack a wide range of leafy plants and vegetables, seedlings and citrus.

What to do before it arrives
Lay some organic snail pellets around the garden or in some margarine containers with little doors cut out of them so the snails can enter. Lay them especially around seedlings.

What to do if you already have problems
Snails and slugs are active at night or after rain. So while it's still early in the morning or after rainfall go out and stomp on these critters with heavy boots, if you can handle it. I find this to be the most effective measure. Also check their favourite hiding spots like under large leaves, roots, old wooden planks and stones.
Some can't bear the thought of being so mercenary, so lay out some traps instead. Snails are attracted to yeast so put out a saucer or bowl full of beer (or if you can't spare a drop for the wildlife, use diluted vegemite). Once the snails crawl in they can't get back out and drown. Snails are great fodder for ducks so cover up your seedlings and get a duck!

One of the most common problems faced by gardeners is the one of slugs and snails. Even experienced gardeners tear their collective hair out at the destruction these creatures can cause. So I thought I would give you a few tried and tested tips, and some others perhaps not so well known, to help you deal with them – you won’t get rid of them all together, but at least you will be able to keep them under some sort of control!

They may not all work for you – a lot depends on just how bad the problem is where you live – but it is certainly worth trying some if not all of them.

These methods will be more effective against snails than slugs, as slugs live in the ground and can therefore avoid barriers.

On your garden borders, you can use barriers around plants, such as crushed eggshells, grit, bran, or wood-ash or soot. The theory is that slugs and snails are reluctant to cross these materials and will therefore wander off elsewhere to look for their next meal. Make sure you put plenty down without any gaps.

Scatter oat bran around your plants – slugs love it, but if they eat enough, they expand and die!

Petroleum jelly smeared thickly around the rims of pots has a similar deterrent effect.

You can purchase copper tape with an adhesive backing, which you can stick around the pot sides – this gives the snail a small electric shock as it tries to cross.

Use beer traps – very effective at dealing with both slugs and snails, and you can buy these from a garden centre. Place the trap, filled with cheap beer, in a hole with the top at soil level. You can also use out of date fruit juice, or even milk just about on the turn. Alternatively, make your own by cutting off about 3-4 inches off the base of a plastic drinks bottle.

After eating your half grapefruit, cut a small hole and place the skin upside down on the soil. Slugs love it and will congregate inside and each day you can collect them up.

Collect all the slugs and snails you can find in the late evening, when they start to become active and drown them in a bucket of heavily salted water. Plain water will not work – they will simply swim to the surface and crawl out! Or, if you know where they hide out, you can gather them up during the day – try looking under logs or bricks, and shrubs, any dark, damp corner.

And what to do with the slugs you’ve collected? If you put live slugs or snails into your compost heap, they will probably stay there, as there is plenty of matter for them to feast on. You can also put the dead ones in there too, those in the beer traps including the beer – but scoop the dead slugs and snails out of the salty water first.

For a biological control, you can use nematodes – microscopic parasites that kill the slugs above and below ground. Obtained from organic garden suppliers, you simply mix the powder with water and spray on to the soil using a watering can. This can be effective for around six weeks.

If you are lucky enough to have the space, adopt some chickens or ducks – they just love eating slugs – and you can have some free eggs into the bargain.

Make your garden wildlife friendly, to encourage the natural predators of slugs and snails to come and visit. Dig a pond to encourage frogs and toads; leave out food for hedgehogs; and put up bird feeders. This will not provide an ‘instant fix’ for the problem, but in the long term will give you a healthier garden with fewer pests.

Fran Barnwell is a self-taught gardener, learning through experience in her own garden. Fran understands the difficulties that face new gardeners, and has written The Ultimate Guide to Gardening for Beginners, a successful eBook that helps anyone new to gardening to get started, explaining the basics in easy to understand terms. To find out more and to sign up to receive a free series of articles, go to http://www.NewToGardening.com.

Ugh...Slugs
Ugh...Slugs! & Snails too. Slug Menu. "You don't have a slug excess, you've got a duck deficit!" Bill Mollison Permaculture expert. Slugs are hermaphrodites: they all have male and female reproductive systems. ... squeeze through openings to get at food. Slugs can follow slime trails they left from the night before ...
http://www.ghorganics.com/page13.html

Snails and Slugs Management Guidelines--UC IPM
UC home and landscape guidelines for control of Snails and Slugs. (Published: 5/03) ... Snails and slugs move by gliding along on a muscular "foot ... Slugs and snails are hermaphrodites, so all have the potential to lay eggs ...
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7427.html

Eye to Eye With Garden Snails
... explore the external characteristics and behavior of snails. It effectively gets students ... to recognizing individual differences in snails and challenges students to learn enough ...
http://www.accessexcellence.org/AE/AEC/AEF/1994/liu_snails.html

All About Snails
This site is devoted to the garden snail. It contains facts about snails, photos, snail games, snail anatomy and life cycle, worksheets and lots of cool info about snails! ... Everyone has snails in their garden, but many gardeners don't like snails because they have a tendency to ...
http://www.geocities.com/sseagraves/allaboutsnails.htm

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http://www.backyardnature.net/snail&sl.htm

Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita.
Text and photographs describing the biological control agent of slugs and snails, Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita ... hermaphrodita is a nematode parasite of slugs which has recently been commercialized in the ... through the soil looking for slugs. Once they have located slugs they infect ...
http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/pathogens/phasmarhabditis_h.html

Vegetable-Insect Pest Management
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http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/ent/notes/Vegetables/veg9.html

Snails & Slugs
Remarks on snails and slugs found in typical backyards. ... Though snails and slugs look very different from one another, they're practically the same thing -- except that snails carry coiled shells on their backs, while slugs don't ...
http://www.backyardnature.net/snail&sl.htm