Organic Gardening - How to Deter Slugs and Snails With Eggshells

Are you tired of visiting your gardening in the morning only to see that other little critters have been up all night feasting on your plants? I love plants like my hostas and vegetables and hate to see them riddled with holes from snails and slugs.
I have something in common with slugs...we both love hostas and vegetable gardens. But, there is something they hate that I love - eggs. They slink away from eggs shells as soon as they feel the sharp edges!
Snails and slugs hate anything that's sharp or rough, so you can save your eggshells and use them underneath your plants to deter them! It really works. Coffee grounds and several other things works as well, and are mentioned in the article link.
Read how we do it here! http://mymerrymessylife.com/2014/05/diy-natural-linen-spray.html
Crush the shells to make them easier to spread.
Snails and slugs come out at night and feast like kings on our plants!
Spread the shells underneath the plant to deter slugs and snail.s
Organic Gardening: How to Deter Slugs and Snails with Eggshells
My Merry Messy Life
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  • Joyce Johnson Joyce Johnson on Jul 10, 2019

    I have potted plants along my walkway to the dock. I live in SC on the marsh. I have crabs (looks like mini stone crabs) that love to feast on the leaves and flowers. Also this year I have grasshoppers. How do I get rid of them?

  • Sowmya Sowmya on May 15, 2020

    crushed eggs are good for slugs... but doesn't eggs attract rats?

  • Gabrielle Falk Gabrielle Falk on Jun 07, 2020

    I know that snails, slugs etc., don't like to crawl across anything that is 'gritty'. Or so I've been told. The idea of putting out bowls of beer in the garden, that will attract the slugs/snails, so that they drown (they are attracted to the smell of the beer) seems to me horribly cruel. So. Instead of using egg-shells, what about using some sort of gritty product that you may be able to get from your local nursery/hardware. Sand? Would that be useful - not beach sand, but sand that is used in construction works. That won't harm your soil or garden. I know that ants don't like talcum powder - don't think that they worry about the fragrance - I've sprinkled talc in and around the kitchen bench tops, and they really don't like it as it clings to their little feet. But certainly does not kill them. Actually I don't like to kill ants, unless they are eating you out of house and home, as I regard them as nature's vacuum cleaners.

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  • Carey Carey on Aug 30, 2021

    I didn't have problems with the egg shells attracting critters but I did discover that feeding my dogs on the deck was a mistake! I went out one night just as it was getting dark prepared to make sure my dogs had some food, and found myself facing a beautiful skunk! She stood there & looked at me, I looked at her & froze! She apparently decided that I was not a danger to her & she turned her back & jumped off the deck & disappeared into the darkness. A short time later (no longer feeding pets on the Deck!) we were sitting on our deck to see a mother skunk come onto our lawn with her two kits to use our leaking sprinkler as a water fountain. We decided not to fix the leak and many nights that summer we enjoyed the Skunks as they came to drink from that sprinkler. They never bothered us, and we kept the dog in when the skunks might appear. They never ventured into the fenced back yard where the dog was free, so we had no conflict with them at all. Just a wonderful experience watching the local wildlife!

  • Carey Carey on Apr 18, 2022

    The one thing that I don’t like about putting the egg shells out in my garden, they were like a white beacon. But I just realized that there is a really good solution to that, I will, this year, use food coloring to color the egg shells, maybe even easter egg dye would be an option -another way to use the rest of that a color when dying easter eggs.

    After the mad cow disease issue happened we were warned about using bone meal under our bulbs. So I have been grinding egg shells up in a blender and using that instead of bonemeal. Now I have two uses for all those egg shells that I have been breaking up and putting in containers for my garden! & I don’t even have to grind them all up!

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