How do you get rid of slugs and snails?

Question

They are ruining my plants. Is it just murder or is there some other way without touching them.

Answer 1

Hi Dreamer
Placing your pots onto sand paper is a good trick, it's like sliding over broken glass. Ouch !!

Answer 2

Beer works well or a variety of yeasty formulas, depending on whether you want to share your beer with them. Put a pie plate in soil at lip level and you'll have regular customers, but you have to swap out the beer about every 2-3 days. A cheap source of beer is to find one of the places that rents out kegs. Call and ask them to save you some or show up on a Saturday morning with some jugs. If it's murder, at least they die happy.

Another thing that works is diatomaceous earth, not the kind you get from pool suppliers. It is powdered, very sharp silica pieces (microfossils actually) and if you surround your plants with a good thickness of it, they will not like to cross it. If a bed is infested just pour lots on the soil within the bed. You can buy diatomaceous earth at garden/hardware stores.

Good Luck !!

Answer 3

All the others are good answers - I can only add the following:
1. for potted plants an inch-wide band of vaseline all round the pot will discourage slugs and snails from climbing up. My son-in-law gets the same result by winding a double row of copper wire around the pot.
2. in winter, search the garden for hibernating sites, under large stones, the sides of large, unused pots, etc., collect the snails and dispose of them. They congregate in colonies and you'll be surprised how many there are.

Answer 4

There are slug baits/killers available. They are little pellets that you sprinkle around the plants and when the slugs eat them they die. I've used this for a couple of years and it's great. I've actually seen several slugs with their mouths still on it that are laying there dead so it's clear that it works well. There are also slug traps you can research and build for yourself, but it's a lot of work and seems gross to me. I bought my stuff at Walmart. Good luck!

Answer 5

Here's some easy environmentally friendly pesticides/deterrents you can make yourself. You can use more than one of these methods at the same time, such as a slug/snail repelling mulch, plus coffee/ coffee grounds.

1. Strong coffee! "A study in the journal Nature found that slugs and snails are killed when sprayed with a caffeine solution. (1) Another study found that "After 96 hours, all of the snails treated with a 0.5% or 2% caffeine solution were dead." (2) Use coffee grounds & your leftover coffee around the base of plants, on mulch & pathways.

2.Chile Pepper. Capsaicin, the natural "heat" of the chile pepper, makes snails unwilling to cross materials containing the naturally repelling properties of chile pepper." (3)

3. Galic spray is great for getting rid of slugs, cutworms, wireworms, & whiteflies. Blend well 1garlic bulb & 1 onion add 1Tbsp cayenne pepper & 1 quart water. Steep ingredients for 1 hr, then strain & add 1 Tbsp dish soap and your non-toxic spray is ready to use. (4)(6)

4.Repellent mulches: Wormwood, prostrate rosemary, basil, rue, acacia bark, and oak leaves are disliked by snails and make good repellent mulches. Wormwood is also effective as a spray.

5. Barriers: Dry, dusty or sharp material can be a barrier to snails, such as hydrated lime, wood ash, sharp sand, crushed egg shells, or diatamaceous earth. "A band 20cms wide and 1 cm high is required. The effectiveness of barriers is reduced when wet so locate them away from watering points. Snail fences may also be made from galvanised metal, window screen wire and similar materials. 30 mesh copper screens can ... prevent climbing, or steel wool can be wound around trestle legs in glass houses." (5)

6.Traps: Place board on ground & scrape off snails when they gather on the underside, &/or place shallow containers sunk into the ground and filled with beer or other fermenting substances such as sour milk, or even "a mixture of water and bakers yeast." (5) Combining both methods by covering part of the container with a board should prevent pets & other creatures from drinking it .

Onion & Marigold plants repell slugs & snails, too.

Hope this helps & you like reading the research articles as much as I did.

Answer 6

Here is a list of home remedies: salt, beer traps, hand pruners, filbert nut shells, egg shells, ammonia spray, yeast, coffee grounds, wormwood tea. However they are not nearly as effective as Corry's slug and snail death or Deadline which you should be able to find at your local garden center or the garden center of Lowes or Home Depot.

Answer 7

slug pellets are good but I don't like using them myslef. I get a couple of glasses, submerge them in the soil around my flower beds and fill them with ale, the slug love it, get drunk fall in and die (not a bad way to go if you ask me). Empty the glasses every week or so, but watch out where you empty the contents, old ale smells bad enough but old ale with dead slugs is even worst

Answer 8

Sink a small plastic pot and fill it with beer. The slugs and snails cannot resist it. They fall in and drown very happily.

Answer 9

I have heard of using beer traps, let them party rather than murder them! Personally they are a nuisance, and I inhumanely use slug pellets!

Answer 10

a flat beer usually works. snail and slugs love it. then they drown. or crushed egg shell as they hate the feeling when crossing it