Handy Tips To Get Rid Your Garden Of Snails and Slugs

by Farhan Sheikh

If the leaves of your plants start to look like a green version of Swiss cheese, snails or slugs could be dining in your garden. They lay their eggs in garden debris, then come out for a few hours at dawn and dusk to turn your plants into doilies.Here are a few quick tips for controlling snails and slugs in your garden.

handy tips to get rid your garden of snails and slugs, gardening, homesteading, pest control

How to Kill Slugs and Snails

Before beginning a slug and snail termination program, we have to know what to look for. The slimy critters can be difficult to find, especially during the day, because they hide in moist dark places like underneath rotting leaves and rocks or wood laying on the ground. It is actually easier to spot early damage and then go after them before they really take hold of a plant.

Keep away compost pile from snails and slugs

There are also some good preventative tactics you should use. One is to make sure your compost pile is well away from the garden itself. To slugs and snails, the compost pile is like living in a luxury hotel! All those rotting leaves, piles of wet lawn clippings and other garden wastes are like heaven to garden slugs.

Use of snail and slug baits

Today there are a number of safe and effective snail and slug baits that can be purchased at any garden center that are designed for killing slugs and snails. These slug baits contain iron phosphate and when eaten by the garden slugs, they will avoid your plants and crawl off to die in a couple of days.

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4 comments

Rhonda Clements on Apr 25, 2015
you can also buy some cheap beer and some aluminum pie pans they love the beer and it will kill them

3 Reply
Meem Kaplan on May 22, 2015
I am acutely allergic to slug/snail bait. I use the chopsticks and beer method. A cat food tin is ideal with beer in it near to the top or to the top. And I go out after dark with chopsticks and drop those slimy guys into an empty dog food can with some beer in it. IN the morning, I throw out the beer/slug mix usually over the fence into the rest of the property. That also attracts slugs so I make sure to do it away from the garden area.

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- OhSally on May 26, 2015
  @Meem Kaplan I am just imagining you with a headlamp, skulking through your yard after dark with a beer in one hand and chopsticks in the other. Hopefully, your neighbors know what THAT is all about! Seriously though, I admire your persistence...slugs are such ICKY things and can do a number on your garden! Thankfully, for me, our soil is very sandy, and apparently too dry for slugs to show much interest...especially since I live in rainy Washington state where slugs are abundant elsewhere. I guess they are happier in wetter areas and don't have a desire to move on, so while our family and friends have slug problems, WE are fortunate enough to NOT have to deal with them!
  
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- Meem Kaplan on May 26, 2015
  @OhSally I guess I've become that crazy old lady of the neighborhood, now. LOL! Olympia does seem to have a bit more warmth than us over here on the coast but watch out for those snails....else You might be next! Just remember to keep those cat food tins full out there and you may not have to put your headlamp on, etc...
  
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