What is the best way to kill snails & slugs when poisons arent working?

Question

I have tried slug & snail killers, beer in a shallow dish, & egg shells but nothing seems to get rid of these pests in my garden and they are killing my Gerberas!!!

Answer 1

"Diatomaceous Earth" Tiny skeletons decomposed and ground into a powder form, to you and I it feels like baby powder to crawling pest it is like crawling on cut glass. Seeing how it is a powder it sticks well to your plant, sprinkle in all around and dust your plants with it I WILL work, and it will not harm your beneficial insects. You can find it at any garden center it is organic and actually provides a little nutrients as well
God Bless
Grandma

Answer 2

My best advice is to get the slug and snail killer, it comes in little pellets... you have to repeat treatment every six weeks. The reason why you have to repeat treatment is because the snails go through different phases in their lives. While you kill the adults, the ones that are eggs when you spread the pellets will come out in about 4-6 weeks later, that's when you spread a second time. You will see results in 3-5 days. You just have to be very careful if you have pets or small children. Remember, snails and slugs come with your plants when you get them from the nursery, also they hide under rocks, lawn furniture, stairs, any nook and crannies... so trying to get them with salt is impossible, it's a lot of fun to see these ugly things suffer when you sprinkle salt on them, but is not really practical doing that. Another alt. method to keep snails away is to visit your local farmer's market, or maybe local nursery; they have a snail that will eat the eggs and babies of the snails that eat your plants... this will take a little longer to work. So if you want immediate results, the pellets are the best.

Answer 3

Try placing a band of copper around the flower garden or pot that contains the Gerberas. You can purchase the bands at nurseries and they work quite well. Anything that has sharp edges also works as it destroys the underside of the little buggers and they die so course bone meal products or course bits of sea shells will do the trick. I personally use the bait tactic. I place a large amount of commercial slug/snail bait under a structure of rocks, bricks or a lawn ornament which allows the bugs in for a dinner of death but keeps the kids and dogs out. Works beautifully.

Answer 4

How often did you do the beer thing? You have to continue doing it for awhile. Once a long time ago, I had a bad slug problem in my garden. I did the beer thing for probably at least a couple of weeks. Little by little, there were fewer and fewer slugs in the dish until they were pretty much all gone.

Also, are you able to manipulate the pH of your soil at all, or will that screw up your plants? Adding lime to the soil is also a good way to get rid of them, but it will alter your soil acidity so should be done with caution.

Answer 5

did you bury the dish? if you dig a hole that fits the dish filled with beer the slugs fall in but can't get out...another option is over turning all of the rocks & bricks in your garden and manually remove them you can throw them onto the black top or in the sun or just squish them. Egg shells dont do anything to prevent slugs. thier slime protects them from the egg shells.

Answer 6

I have a slug problem from time to time in my flower beds, I dig a shallow hole, put a shallow bowl in it and pour some beer into it. The slugs are attracted to the yeast, and they get in it and drown, or get so drunk they die. Any way it works.

Answer 7

The garden guy from NPR has 13 ways to stop slugs. Here is a link to his page on getting rid of them. Hope it helps!
http://www.gardensalive.com/article.asp?ai=627

Answer 8

try salt. trowl a small trench around your garden, pour salt in. make sure that you have removed all the snails and slugs from the area. they should die when more try to get in. it takes dilagence, good luck

Answer 9

cut a beer can (it has to be a beer can) about 1.5 inches from the bottom (with scissors) CAREFUL!! and put 1 inch of beer into it. Leave this sitting in you r garden (where the pests are) and they will go have their last beer.

Answer 10

Put an old beer can with some old stale beer in the garden they are attracked to it and they can not get out of the beer can.