Slugs and snails are widespread backyard pests that may trigger harm to a variety of vegetation, from greens and fruits to flowers and decorative vegetation. They voraciously feed on the tender leaves, buds, fruits, and stems, forsaking holes and discolored patches. A big infestation can completely devastate your backyard.
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Snail and Slug Fundamentals
Slugs and snails will not be bugs; they’re soft-bodied mollusks. The primary distinction between slugs and snails is that the latter have a shell which is made largely of calcium carbonate, like egg shells.
Additionally referred to as gastropods, which implies “stomach-foot”, snails and slugs journey on one “foot”, and go away a tell-tale path of shiny, slimy mucus wherever they go. Actually, it’s the presence of this slime that may assist you to distinguish slug and snail harm from that brought on by different pests.
Slugs and snails are hermaphroditic, which means every particular person has each female and male reproductive organs. This implies they’re able to reproduce shortly and prolifically, and in consequence do a lot of harm in case you don’t management their populations.
The most effective strategy to slug and snail management is to make use of an built-in mixture of cultural, bodily and organic strategies collectively. Listed here are 13 totally different strategies that can assist you management slugs and snails naturally in your backyard.
Cultural Controls
The best way you domesticate and keep your backyard can have a huge impact on stopping pest populations.
Cut back Slug and Snail Habitat
Slugs and snails feed primarily at evening, so throughout the day they cover in moist, darkish locations beneath leaves, pots, planters, thick groundcovers like ivy and ice plant, and mulch. To make your backyard much less slug-friendly, you will have to both scale back and take away their hiding locations, or use them as a entice (See under):
- Transfer soggy leaf or straw mulch away out of your vegetation as quickly as they arrive up within the Spring. Wait to mulch once more till early summer time when the soil and air is drier.
- Take away useless or broken leaves out of your vegetation year-round to encourage good air circulation and take away hiding locations, particularly across the root zone.
- Within the fall, clear up backyard particles and transfer it far out of your backyard beds to make it harder for slugs to put eggs and overwinter.
- Put away your unused pots, planks of wooden, and different backyard litter that would present hiding locations for slugs, snails and their eggs.
Water Within the Morning
One of the best ways to assist forestall slug and snail harm is to maintain plant and soil surfaces as dry as attainable in a single day. All the time water very early within the morning reasonably than within the night, so surfaces are dry by the top of the day.
Keep away from overhead watering, as moist leaves are extra susceptible to wreck from slugs and snails in addition to from fungal illness. In areas with excessive rainfall or humidity, give vegetation further area within the backyard to advertise good air circulation.
The most effective apply is to change to drip irrigation on a timer. This does three actually good issues to your backyard. Drip irrigation:
- saves water by irrigating immediately on the root zone, via any mulch, saving you water and cash. With a timer in your system, you’ll be able to water at dawn with out even getting off the bed!
- eliminates overhead watering, which reduces moist foliage, stopping pests and illness
- significantly reduces the period of time that the bottom is moist, which makes your backyard far much less liveable for moisture-loving pests like snails and slugs.
Select Slug Resistant Crops
Leaves with tender, delicate leaves and fruits are typically slug magnets, together with basil, beans, cabbage, dahlia, delphinium, hosta, lettuce, marigolds, strawberries, and small seedlings of all types.
Leaves which are thick, leathery, bushy or waxy resist their assaults, as do vegetation which are very fragrant. The place you’ll be able to, select vegetation that slugs don’t take care of, like cyclamen, ferns, geraniums, lavender, nasturtiums, poppies, rhodededrons, rosemary, or sage.
Use Companion Planting
Some fragrant vegetation, akin to rosemary, chamomile, chives, and garlic naturally repel slugs and snails. Planting most of these vegetation close to or round different vegetation which are vulnerable to slug and snail harm may also help to discourage them, in case your downside is mild.
Different vegetation are very engaging to snails and slugs, and will be planted subsequent to the backyard to distract and entice them. Good entice crops for slugs embody chervil, marigold, and thyme. Mix entice crops with handpicking to successfully management reasonable slug and snail populations.
Bodily Controls
Handpicking
One of the primary and efficient strategies of controlling slugs and snails is by merely hand-picking them out of your vegetation. That is finest finished at evening when the pests are most lively. Use a flashlight or blacklight round their hiding locations and favourite locations to feed and it is possible for you to to identify them and their slime trails. (You’ll be able to typically acquire caterpillars, hornworms and different pests extra simply at evening, too!)
Utilizing gloves (to keep away from the slime), choose off and drop any pests you discover right into a bucket of soapy water to kill them, or hold them in a closed container to feed to your chickens, geese, or opossums. Alternatively, you can harvest garden snails to eat yourself! Snails and slugs have a pure homing intuition, so in case you don’t destroy them, you’ll have to take them very far out of your yard, or they are going to simply come again.
Handpicking for a number of nights in a row will significantly scale back pest populations. As soon as the inhabitants has noticeably declined, weekly hand-picking must be adequate.
Backyard Cloches
Cloches are small plastic or glass domes that go over particular person vegetation to guard them from backyard pests in addition to from frost. They’re nice at guarding small seedlings in opposition to slugs and snails, in addition to birds, squirrels and rabbits, as a result of the pests can not crawl up and over them.
Remember that backyard cloches are like mini greenhouses, and they also create further warmth and condensation round your vegetation. Ensure to elevate them off or keep away from utilizing them on sizzling days, so that you don’t overheat your vegetation.
You should purchase pre-made cloches, or make your personal DIY cloches from repurposed plastic 2-liter bottles or milk jugs with the bottoms reduce off and the caps eliminated.
Wooden Traps
As a result of snails and slugs like to cover in cool, darkish, moist locations throughout the day, you’ll be able to entice these pests beneath board traps or flower pots that you just place all through your yard.
You’ll be able to construct board traps by elevating 12- by 15-inch boards (or any easy-to-handle measurement piece of scrap wooden) off the bottom with 1-inch runners on two sides, like a really low desk. The runners elevate the board simply excessive sufficient for slugs and snails to crawl beneath. Ensure each the board traps and the soil are good and moist if you lay them down.
Raise boards day by day and scrape off any snails and slugs you discover. Destroy them away out of your backyard in a bucket of soapy water, feed them to your chickens, or harvest them for dinner. (see Handpicking).
Bread Dough Traps
Latest research from Oregon State University has discovered probably the most profitable attractant for slugs is bread dough. Affiliate professor Rory McDonnell mentioned, “They actually, actually prefer it. Bread dough outperformed every thing.” In a single occasion, over 18,000 snails have been trapped in 48 hours.
You can also make bread dough utilizing the researcher’s recipe and hand-pick the slugs from the dough, or flip it right into a slurry to draw the slugs who then drown within the liquid.
Bread Dough Slug and Snail Lure
This “bread dough” recipe is irresistible to slugs and snails, making it tremendous simple to entice and take away them out of your backyard.
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Combine collectively the flour, water and packet of yeast. Knead right into a dough for handpicking traps, or add extra water as wanted to make a slurry for drowning traps.
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Put your dough or slurry into ready-made slug and snail traps you should buy at backyard provide shops, or make your personal out of a mason jar or massive, plastic yogurt container with just a few snail-size holes reduce into the lid.
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Bury the entice on the sting of your backyard in order that the opening of the entice is stage with the highest of the soil. That manner, slugs and snails can fall simply into it.
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Examine the container each morning and take away slugs. Preserve your slurry or dough moist and refreshed for finest outcomes.
Beer Traps
Slugs and snails are interested in the yeast in beer as a lot as in bread dough, so putting a number of small bowls of low cost, yeasty beer as traps on the perimeters of your backyard will be an efficient approach to management a small pest inhabitants.
As a result of each bread dough and beer are so engaging, you need to place your traps on the perimeters of your backyard beds, in order to attract the slugs and snails away from your tender vegetation.
Your entice should be deep sufficient to drown them, and have vertical sides to maintain them from crawling out. Additionally, you will want a lid of some form to scale back evaporation and stop rain dilution.
Make sure you bury the traps in order that they’re almost stage with the soil, and alter the beer each few days to take care of its effectiveness.
You should buy ready-made slug and snail traps at backyard provide shops, or you may make your personal by burying a mason jar, small bowl, or massive, plastic yogurt container so the rim is at floor stage, and putting a lid with one or two snail-size holes reduce into it over the container.
Where to find slug/snail traps.
Diatomaceous Earth (DE)
Diatomaceous earth (DE) is a pure powder comprised of the fossilized stays of tiny aquatic organisms referred to as diatoms that slugs and snails (and most hard-shelled bugs) discover tough and dessicating to crawl via.
Limitations of dry diatomaceous earth heaped in a band 1 inch excessive and three inches broad round your vegetation have been proven to be efficient at deterring slugs, in addition to earwigs, mites, ants, fleas, tablet bugs and different pests which have an exoskeleton.
Nonetheless, diatomaceous earth loses all effectiveness as a pest management the second it turns into moist, making it impractical as a slug barrier in most backyard conditions. Nonetheless, it really works nice as a non-toxic pest management mud utilized immediately on infestations of aphids, ants, fleas, and so on. each within the backyard and round your property.
Where to find food-grade diatomaceous earth.
Organic Controls
Encourage Pure Predators
Frogs, toads, snakes, birds, raccoons, opossums, turtles, geese, and even chickens will eat slugs, snails and their eggs. Most terrestrial snail species make nice escargot! Encourage pure predators by giving them habitat, like a small pond or water function in your yard, or a small log and brush pile in a secluded or distant portion of your property.
You too can let your geese or chickens unfastened in your backyard or orchard to make fast work of slugs and snails there, in case your vegetation are massive sufficient to deal with pecking and hopping round them.
Use Helpful Nematodes
Nematodes are a category of tiny, helpful worms that may be utilized to the soil to manage many varieties of pests. They are typically voracious predators for his or her particular prey of selection, and make fast work of any that are available in contact with them. Every species of nematode assaults totally different species of pests, so it is very important select the suitable nematodes for the job you want them to do. The nematode varieties referred to as Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita and Phasmarhabditis californica, particularly, kill slugs and snails. They’re the one sorts of nematode which are confirmed to take action.
Nematodes are utilized to your soil by mixing them in water and making use of them to your backyard beds or planters in line with instructions on the bundle. As a result of they’re dwelling creatures, after you purchase them, they are going to have to be saved in a darkish container within the fridge, and used shortly.
Slug-killing nematodes will be bought from gardening provide shops in Europe, however will not be but accessible within the U.S. (Though many different species of pest-control nematodes can be found within the U.S.)
Where to find slug-killing beneficial nematodes in Europe.
Chemical Controls
Chemical controls for snails and slugs will be efficient when used along with an built-in pest administration program that includes the opposite strategies mentioned above. Baits alone will not successfully management snails or slugs in the long run.
Copper Limitations
Slugs and snails expertise an uncomfortable chemical response to their slime touching copper, so copper boundaries will be an efficient approach to deter them—although they have an inclination to work higher in small purposes like potted vegetation, reasonably than massive backyard beds. Right here’s tips on how to finest use them:
- Make protecting collars to your seedlings by wrapping them with a strip of 2-sided copper tape or flashing that’s at the least 3 inches broad so you’ll be able to bury a portion of it 1 or 2 inches under the soil to forestall pests from crawling beneath the barrier.
- Nail or glue 2-inch broad copper foil or tape across the base of your pots and patio containers. Make sure you take away any pests current within the soil earlier than making use of the barrier, so that you don’t undermine your efforts.
- Shield your bushes by wrapping a 4-inch broad band of copper foil or mesh across the trunk, permitting for an 8-inch overlap across the trunk. Staple one finish into the trunk, then join the opposite finish to itself with paper clips that may permit the copper band to slip outward and increase because the trunk grows.
To be efficient in opposition to slugs and snails, copper boundaries have to be at the least 2 inches broad, and made with a excessive share of copper. Most copper tapes offered at backyard facilities are too slender and too low in copper to be very efficient, so search for thicker, wider copper tapes which are particularly made for shielding electrical guitars and different electronics.
Copper boundaries are efficient till they turn into tarnished. Once they do tarnish (which can range based mostly in your area and local weather), you’ll be able to clear them with a vinegar answer.
Where to find high-quality copper tape.
Iron Phosphate Bait
Iron phosphate bait pellets—accessible beneath many model names, together with Sluggo and Slug Magic—will trigger snails and slugs to cease consuming, nonetheless it could possibly take a number of days to every week for the snails to die.
Iron phosphate is a pure mineral, and due to this fact it’s acceptable to be used in natural farming. Nonetheless, iron-based slug pellets will not be fully non-toxic to different animals. These pellets can kill earthworms and hurt animals or folks that ingest massive portions of them, so hold the bundle locked away from youngsters, pets, and compost bins. However iron phosphate slug pellets are nonetheless a a lot safer different to metaldehyde slug baits.
Sprinkle snail bait pellets over the backyard soil, close to, however not on vegetation which are engaging to them, or close to their favourite hiding locations, akin to beneath planters and irrigation bins, near partitions and fences, or different moist, protected areas.
Apply the bait within the late afternoon or night to benefit from the nighttime feeding habits of those pests. Making use of bait repeatedly in the identical areas is finest, as a result of snails and slugs are likely to return to meals supply websites.
Mild watering after software helps these pellets to work higher, as a result of it encourages snails and slugs to forage. Nonetheless, don’t water closely after bait placement, since you might bury the pellets in soil, wash them away, or make them moldy.
Where to find iron phosphate slug pellets.
AVOID: Metaldehyde Bait
Slug and snail baits containing the lively ingredient metaldehyde are simple to search out in backyard facilities, and they’re extremely efficient. Nonetheless, metaldehyde baits are toxic, notably to canine and cats, and the pelleted kind will be very engaging to canine. Some metaldehyde merchandise are formulated with “carbaryl”, which is poisonous to earthworms and soil-inhabiting helpful bugs.
Metaldehyde isn’t accredited for natural farming. Don’t use metaldehyde snail baits the place youngsters and pets might encounter them. Keep away from getting metaldehyde bait on vegetation, particularly vegatables and fruits.
AVOID: Salt or Ammonia
Each slugs and snails will be killed very successfully by both sprinkling them with salt or spraying them with an ammonia answer. However these chemical substances additionally kill vegetation and soil life fairly readily, and so they can accumulate in your soil, so they aren’t advisable for slug and snail management within the yard and backyard, or close to storm drains, creeks, lakes, rivers or different waterways.
What Doesn’t Work to Management Snails – Frequent Myths
Opposite to widespread backyard folklore, crushed egg shells, espresso grounds, wooden ash, pine needles, shredded bark mulch and wool pellets have all been tested and shown to be ineffective at deterring slugs and snails.
Actually, some experiments show that snails and slugs don’t appear to thoughts espresso grounds or egg shells one bit. And since calcium is an important a part of a snail’s weight loss program (to take care of their shell), they might really be interested in egg shells!
Put your espresso grounds, wooden ash, and egg shells to raised use in your compost bin. Pine needles, shredded bark and wool pellets make excellent mulches, however don’t rely on them for slug management.
