Did you know that snails have 14,175 teeth, with which they quickly grind everything edible in the ground that comes their way?
Therefore, it is not at all surprising that a large number of gardeners, as well as gardeners, are in search of answers to the question of how to properly deal with snails in their local area.
You need to know that it is very difficult to fight an invasion of snails; it can most easily be prevented by carrying out preventive measures against these creatures from time to time.
In addition, cute favorites of small children, snails are carriers of tapeworms as well as roundworms.
- 2 Ways to control snails in the garden
- 3 What methods can you use to fight snails in the garden?
- 4 Fighting grape snails
- 5 Natural Ways to Control Snails
- 6 New and chemical means of snail control
- 7 Fighting snails or slugs using folk remedies (Video)
What can snails destroy?
Snails often crawl out to “hunt” at night or in bad cloudy weather after rain. During the day, they like to camouflage themselves in secluded places where it is very humid and too dark. You can find out that you have snails by the irregularly shaped holes that the mollusks gnaw out in the succulent leaves of various plants.
They don't like the stem and large veins at all. Another correct sign of the appearance of snails in your local area is heaps of feces, as well as traces of mucus. These signs may mean it's time to get serious about snail control in your garden.
The fight against snails is carried out using different methods: mechanical, environmental, chemical, and also folk methods.
Prevention
Mollusks do not attack areas if people carefully look after them. To prevent the problem, you must do the following:
- It is recommended to remove weeds from the site and loosen the soil.
- Attract birds to your site. To do this, hang feeders around the area and install 2-3 birdhouses.
- The area should be kept in order. Remove rotten boards, clean up stumps, stones and other similar objects.
- Carry out thorough loosening of the soil. The earth should have a homogeneous structure.
- Dig up the soil regularly in the fall. In this case, all pests present here will die. If necessary, the procedure can be repeated in the spring.
- Avoid excessive waterlogging of the area.
When snails are first discovered, start solving the problem. Otherwise, this will lead to disastrous consequences in a short time.
Popular advice helps to quickly get rid of garden pests such as gastropods. There are a large number of different means. Every gardener will certainly find something suitable for himself among the abundance presented. In this case, it will be possible to obtain a harvest and cultivated plants on the site.
Ways to control snails in the garden
Although these mollusks cause great damage to the garden, they should still be classified as garden nurses. By processing all injured plants by some pests, or dead parts of various plants, they perform a great function in the garden - they completely cleanse the garden ecosystem. Therefore, the battle with snails in the garden must be carried out using gentle measures, and not by exterminating them all.
First, you need to limit the access of snails to plants, and the chemical method of exterminating snails should be used only as a last resort, and only locally, in those places where there are a lot of snails.
Proper gardening is the first preventive measure against true shellfish infestations. It consists of various techniques, which include modernization of the structure and quality of the soil, ongoing garden work, well-selected garden plants, temporary maintenance of hygiene in the garden, rotation of different crops, correctly selected plant proximity and much more.
All these measures will strengthen the plants, and, as everyone knows, strong, normal plants are better able to resist diseases and the invasion of various pests than damaged ones.
Birds, lizards, frogs, fireflies, hedgehogs, toads, and various beetles also help fight snails in the garden. Therefore, it is necessary to attract these representatives of beneficial fauna so that they carry out natural control over all pests.
You can attract them very easily: when you see a hedgehog in the garden, you should treat him with milk, then he will come again for a treat, and he can even bring his family. It is worth knowing that one hedgehog can eat as many snails as its weight.
To attract frogs and toads, you need to dig a small pond in your area. Catch these animals in a city pond or park, and then settle them on your property, creating the best conditions for them.
Irrigation adjustments
One of the factors that provokes the appearance of slugs and snails in the garden is abundant watering. Moisture that accumulates not only in the soil, but also on plants, attracts slugs.
Watering is best done early in the morning and by evening the soil will have time to dry out sufficiently. Regularly remove old mulch from the area, periodically laying a new layer. This will help reduce the number of waterings, but maintain an optimal level of soil moisture.
Wet mulch is one of the favorite habitats for slugs and snails, as it creates ideal conditions for them.
What methods can you use to fight snails in your garden?
By eating a lot of foliage, gnawing out many roots of fruits, and also eating flowers, mollusks cause great damage to the garden - they completely limit photosynthesis, also reduce the occurrence of ovaries, and completely reduce the storage time of an already damaged crop.
An injured plant has the greatest number of attempts to develop various fungal diseases; in addition, the mucus of the pests causes the fruits to completely rot. You can fight all mollusks in the garden in different ways, but it is advisable to use mechanical as well as environmental methods of control.
The chemical method is used only as a last resort, since it is dangerous both for pests and for the plants themselves. The mechanical option for controlling snails is to collect them manually, which is preferably done using tweezers.
We catch snails. You can easily catch snails using traps that are placed in damp places. To do this, old bags, rags, cabbage leaves or burdock, as well as boards are placed between the beds themselves on the paths.
On a hot day, the snail clams will crawl under their shelters; all you have to do is quickly grab them and collect them in the evening. You can also fight mollusks in the country using shallow tanks filled with water and covered with rags. The containers must be dug level with the ground. The collected mollusks are completely liquidated in a saline and soap solution.
Appearance Features
A slug is a land gastropod without a shell, which is related to the snail. Unlike a slug, a snail has a rudimentary shell.
A slug is easily recognized by its shapeless, elongated body with strong muscles, due to which it takes on different shapes. The color is very different - gray, dirty yellow, light brown, etc. The body size in length is about 3 cm.
Heads with two tentacles carrying organs of vision, touch and smell. The grater-shaped tongue is covered with several rows of small, hard teeth. There is a special mantle with a lung on the back, and a breathing hole on the side.
The slug gets its name from the mucus that covers its body. This is an important component of his life - helping to maintain the microclimate of the body, move and protect himself from enemies.
Slugs are land gastropods
Fighting grape snails
Mostly grape snails live in the garden. They have a soft body, so combating such mollusks can be done with broken shells, eggshells, and gravel.
By scattering egg shells in ribbons between the beds themselves, you can create a completely unpleasant surface for the snails to move around, since the sharp edges of the scattered material will only cut their very delicate body.
You can also sprinkle several strips of superphosphate or lime between the beds themselves - they instantly absorb water and mucus from the surface of the mollusk’s body, thus blocking its movement. But this method of control has its drawback - it is not very convenient to water the plants, and it is washed away by rain.
Life cycle
Each slug is hermaphrodite - has both female and male genital organs. They recognize each other by smell. They usually lay 30 eggs, 2 mm in diameter, collected in compact piles. After 3 thinnings, young animals appear that are able to feed on organic matter already in the first day of their life. After 6.5 weeks, the pests are ready to mate. Each individual lays up to 500 eggs during the season.
With the onset of cold weather, many individuals die; some remain to overwinter in the soil. In the spring, the life cycle of the creatures repeats.
Natural ways to control snails
As noted above, the fight against snails in the country should, if possible, be carried out using mechanical or various folk means. You can simply place plastic gutters on the ground that will be filled with water.
In the garden, gutters with water are mainly attached to prefabricated beds. Water is an insurmountable obstacle for shellfish, so once they get into the water, they will definitely never be able to get out of it.
An ecological option for controlling snails is to attract representatives of the fauna: jays, starlings, hedgehogs, blackbirds, frogs, etc.
Shellfish cannot eat all plants; for example, they cannot tolerate herbs at all. Therefore, it is worth planting parsley, garlic, rosemary, sage, and also laurel around the perimeter of the beds - they will constantly repel snails from various plants.
Infusions of mustard, coffee, and pepper can be used as a means of combating voracious pests.
They do not tolerate snails or fresh nettles laid on the beds. You can also purchase wide plastic headbands with specially bent edges.
They are attached around plantings in the ground and that’s it - the mollusks will not be able to get close to the plants at all. You can also easily distract pests from plantings using old leaves, as well as tops of plantings.
This option for combating pests is very effective in greenhouses. Being carried away by eating this waste, the mollusks “forget” about all the growing plantings, therefore, they can be easily collected along with all the drying waste and disposed of. Traps must be replaced from time to time with fresh tops.
Planting
By planting plants with a strong aroma in the garden, you can forget about the problem of slugs and snails. These pests do not tolerate some crops, so they will never appear in the area where they grow.
These plants include:
- Rosemary is officinalis. This seasoning perfectly repels a variety of garden pests. The leaves of the plant exude a bright and clean aroma that slugs cannot tolerate. They can be grown in open ground or pots; in the summer they are taken out into the garden and placed next to the beds where snails have been spotted.
- Parsley. It has a bright and rich aroma, as the leaves and other parts of the plant contain essential oils. Parsley effectively repels shellfish, so it is recommended to plant it next to crops that are subject to pest attacks.
- Thyme. The culture is one of the aromatic oil plants. Thyme is almost never attacked by pests, providing protection to neighboring plantings.
- Sage. This is an essential oil crop containing unique odorous biologically active substances. Thanks to its distinct spicy scent, sage repels slugs from garden beds.
- Basil. It has a pleasant aroma for humans, but slugs cannot tolerate this smell. The plant contains essential oils in the aerial parts.
- Lavender. The aroma of this plant is unpleasant and a strong irritant to slugs. It is enough to plant lavender in the garden and neighboring crops will not be attacked by pests.
- Yarrow. Due to the content of essential oils, the culture emits an aroma that is unpleasant for snails and slugs. Therefore, yarrow is, in most cases, grown as a repellent plant.
New and chemical means of snail control
Methods of fighting snails are constantly being improved. There are, for example, rims and special self-adhesive tapes that are made of copper, covering material that has a copper coating - through them you can perform electrical control over the snails. They get a slight shock from contact with copper, which is why they definitely don’t want to cross this barrier later.
Another interesting way to control snails is the parasitic nematode Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodit. The advantages of this biological method are long-term action, efficiency and at the same time safety for the environment, as well as people. You can buy a nematode without any problems.
It is very easy to use this method: the acquired methods are first diluted with water and then watered from a watering can on the planting where the snails are located. All mollusks die in this place within a week. However, watering will last for 1.5 months.
You can also fight mollusks in your local area using chemical methods, if nothing else helps. Chemical methods for combating different pests are completely different, but the best are metaldehyde granules.
The beautiful blue granules of these drugs attract and immediately kill snails, but you need to know that it is also dangerous for pets and many people. Therefore, when using these drugs, you should observe all safety measures.
Chemicals
Natural methods do not always bring results, especially if the summer is rainy. In this case, you have to use chemicals.
Using the following drugs, you can get rid of slugs and snails:
- Mesurol. These are granules that are scattered abundantly in the habitats of mollusks. Suitable for use even at low temperatures. It turns out that the effect is almost immediate - the snails are deprived of mucus. The drug is used 2-3 times, depending on the complexity of the situation and until the pests are destroyed.
- Nemaslug. The product contains nematodes that penetrate the body of snails, causing their slow death. After about 5 days, the pests stop feeding and die after 10-14 days.
A product is used to spray or water plants. It is enough to carry out 1-3 treatments per season. - Anti-slip gel. The product has no odor. The drug is applied strictly around the plants. A coating is created that provides reliable protection against slug attacks.
When grown indoors, the area around the greenhouse is treated, since pests can penetrate inside through underground tunnels.
The use of chemistry does not leave its mark on the environment. Therefore, it is strictly forbidden to exceed the dosage specified in the instructions.
conclusions
In conclusion, it can be noted that although chemicals do their job, they remain chemicals, substances foreign to the soil and the beneficial bacteria inhabiting it. There is no need to think that the poisons themselves will do all the work, and you will only reap the harvest. Even if this is so, how useful will the fruits be and will they be at all?
Simple recommendations for traps and barriers will not only help prevent slug infestations, but will also make the soil more fertile. And remember one wise thought, which goes back far to our ancestors: “Bowing to the earth is not alien, it will thank you a hundredfold!”
