Slugs & Snails, I am inundated with them how can I get rid of them please?

Question

I expect this has been asked before but my garden is full of them. All the bulbs have been eaten, all the leaves on the plants have holes in them, I crunch over them down the path - the snails. At night I could not believe it the lawn is a sea of slugs. I cannot put pellets down because I have a dog and am worried she will eat them.

I have had a hedgehog staying in the dog kennel recently and the results have been slightly better but over the week-end he/she has moved next door and I really could cry there seems to have been an almost dramatic mass move into my garden. I need a solution - fast, please can anyone help?

Answer 1

You can cut down numbers with beer traps - but you have to empty them yuk!

There are also various barriers which work for a bit. For example soot, hair, sharp grit etc.

Better to encourage wildlife like your hedgehog and birds. The best thing is definately a pond. The frogs and toads which move in will eat up all your slugs and snails. I had a pond in my garden with lots of hostas ( favourite slug food ) and had now slug damage at all. The garden was run on organic principles with plenty of habitat for wildlife.

Answer 2

Yucky as it sounds - the best thing to do if you can see this sea of slugs is scoop them up & dispose of them (chucking them over the neighbours fence won't work - they appear to have a homing instinct and will feel free to invite new friends back with them!)
Do a late evening, early morning patrol for a week or so, collect the little sods up & then immerse them in a big bucket of salt water. Very satisfying and you can just sling the resulting gloopy mass down the drain!
Of course - on an ongoing basis you need to be attracting that hog back (cat food is a good bribe!) also birds like thrushes make a great dent in the snail population.
You CAN get nematodes for slugs - but they are really better confined to pots (they are very good though!)

Answer 3

Try putting down sharp sand or crushed egg shells around your plants. Slugs and snails don't like crawling over anything like that probably because they have a soft underside.
Good luck.

Answer 4

Put a "slug pub" in your garden. Put a tub of beer in the garden, and all the slugs climb in and drown - they can't resist the smell of beer. I did this and about 40-50 slugs drowned in the beer in just one night.

Answer 5

One of the "green" ways, which will not harm your dog is to scatter broken egg shells around your plants. This will deter the snails and slugs as they are sharp and prickly.

Answer 6

Place a bowl in the ground (leave the rim slightly above the dirt) fill the bowl with beer, yes beer they will crawl in a drown. Yes it is true, and yes it does work, old cure

Answer 7

Put beer in shallow containers around
the lawn at night, they will get drunk
and wont be able to get out of the sun
in the morning and they will die. If you
cannot wait that long go out at night with a flashlight and sprinkle table salt
on them and you can watch them die.

Answer 8

salt around the edge of the planting boarders or you can buy slug traps probally work on snails too , but salt is natural and will nt hurt the dog or other wild life , cheap to. gl

Answer 9

get a glass and bury it in the ground next to your bulbs and fill it with beer .the slugs love it they go in drink it and drown in it .sounds cruel but it works

Answer 10

They love beer, seriously.

Bury some cups up to the rim and fill them with beer.

They fall in the beer and drown.