Snails and slugs in home gardens are classified as pests, as they not only harm plants, but also carry helminths that affect pets. Therefore, it is simply necessary to fight small mischief-makers.
Many people know how to get rid of snails in an aquarium, but not everyone knows how to solve the problem with annoying mollusks in the garden and in the garden. This is what we will try to tell in our today's article.
What are harmful slugs
Before moving on to the issue of dealing with slugs in the garden, it is worth knowing what harm these little mollusks cause. During the day, you will hardly meet these tiny neighbors in the garden on the site, they hide in wet places. And with the onset of night or after rain, the slugs go out to “hunt”. You can observe its consequences on corroded lettuce and cabbage leaves.
As a rule, mollusks like the most tender and juicy places of plants, in which they gnaw out characteristic irregularly shaped holes. In addition, the “menu” of slugs has more than 150 types of plants, so your garden is likely to be to their taste. Mollusks do not disdain decorative flowers.
As a rule, large veins and stalk are not interesting for snails. After themselves on plants, they also leave traces of mucus and feces. If you notice these signs in your area, you need to take immediate action.
After all, if you let things go by themselves, you can get unpleasant consequences:
- Attacking young plants, slugs eat green shoots under the root, thereby destroying your work;
- Eaten foliage causes restrictions on the process of photosynthesis, and plants stop developing properly;
- Mollusks are also very fond of flowers, which directly threatens the harvest;
- After the visit of the snails, the outer shell of the root crops loses its integrity, which means that they will no longer be able to be stored for a long time;
- Violation of the shell of the fruit is also fraught with the development of fungal diseases;
- The mucus left on the fruits after the snails contributes to rapid decay.
Methods of dealing with the use of chemistry
So, we found out that it is absolutely necessary to deal with slugs in the garden, but how to do it effectively?
- Method 1. One of the effective ways to get rid of snails in the country is to use ordinary vinegar. To do this, you need to take 9% vinegar, dilute it in a ratio of 50 ml per 10 liters of water, select the largest gaps in which slugs hide and pour the resulting solution there. It is best to do this procedure in the evening, when the snails are already preparing to go outside. The delicate body of the slugs will not withstand an acid burn, and the pests will die;
- Method 2. You can use the drug "Meta" or "Thunderstorm", Which contain metaldegit. But keep in mind that this is a fairly strong poison and you need to use it carefully. Therefore, we do not recommend throwing the entire area up and down with poisonous granules, but putting a few peas in the immediate vicinity of the "tasty" plants for snails. For the slug to die, it will be enough for him to touch the poisonous substance;
- Method 3. Powdered superphosphate, scattered throughout the garden, is also suitable for the destruction of mollusks. For 10 m², 200 grams of the substance will be enough.
We fight slugs in an ecological way
And for those who do not accept the use of chemicals, there are also options on how to get rid of snails. But to successfully solve the problem, you will have to make a little effort.
- You can also use the old grandfather's method - sprinkle the garden with shag or tobacco. Also, slugs do not like acidified soil. This can be achieved by scattering coniferous needles over the beds, which are completely harmless to plants;
- You can also add pepper to the habitats of snails. An excellent option would be red and black ground pepper, sprinkled directly on the leaves and soil. Going out hunting at night, slugs will burn their tender bellies and, most likely, will not want to come back again;
- The next method also involves the use of pepper, tobacco or ash, which must be poured into the grooves between the beds. Thus, slugs receive almost insurmountable obstacles on their way to the cherished fruits and plants, and, most likely, after they will move to the neighboring garden;
- You can treat the soil with another miraculous composition, which is extremely unpleasant for the bellies of slugs. You can choose wood ash, sand, eggshells or lime, mix and in a 1:1 ratio and sprinkle the paths before the evening snail promenade. If you use this method at least once a week, after a month you can forget about slugs;
- To protect plants and vegetables that slugs like best, you can plant onions, garlic or sage next to them. Parsley, rosemary and bay leaf will also help scare away slugs.
Prevention methods
It is much easier to prevent the appearance of garden slugs than to rack your brains and look for ways to quickly and effectively get rid of garden snails. The main task in this case is to create unfavorable conditions for the habitat of mollusks, and then they will go looking for a more comfortable place for themselves, and your crop will not suffer.
Good afternoon, dear subscribers! Today we will talk about methods of dealing with slugs and snails at their summer cottage. The problem of the abundance of these creatures is very relevant, it is especially a pity when your plant, in which so much effort has been invested, is eaten by these uninvited guests.
Slugs and snails in the garden cause a lot of trouble. These invertebrates eat tender plant shoots, foliage, and even fruits. In recent years, in general, some kind of massive invasion of snails.
When my husband and I go for a walk in the evening, under our feet on the paths, only the crackling of crushed snail shells is heard. Slugs are more secretive - they don’t crawl along the roads like that, but they are also very prolific.
For example, only one female lays up to 500 eggs during the warm period! In one litter there can be up to 50 eggs, they look like frogs, only they are attached to tree trunks, sticks, under some boards lying on the ground, under foliage and in compost. Where it's warm and humid.
They also lay eggs and snails. And the color of the masonry is even somewhat similar. The only difference is that snails are most often visible, while slugs are more secretive.
The active phase of fruiting in all these crawling creatures is in late summer and early autumn. But only in the spring, in May of the following year, the first garden slugs appear from the masonry.
For two months they mature, and by August they themselves begin to give birth, increasing the population to some insane amounts. There are especially many slugs and snails in warm rainy summers. This is downright trouble! It is very difficult to get rid of them.
Another characteristic feature of slugs is their omnivorous nature. So a naked slug is able to eat 200 types of cultivated plants! The range of his table is extremely diverse, which gave him the opportunity to spread so widely in our gardens.
Leaves, vegetables, root crops suffer, all parts of plants can be eaten by these quiet gluttons. There are especially a lot of them on strawberries - apparently they are drawn to sweets ...
Plus, slugs carry various plant diseases. Their surface is always wet, so all sorts of rot, bacteria, infections cling to the tissues.
Rainy warm days in the middle of summer are the best time for slugs to be active. They thrive best at night and in the evening when the humidity rises and the sun does not scorch the ground too much.
If the weather is hot and dry, then the slugs crawl under the boards, under the stones, under the thick deposits of rotten leaves and grass.
How to deal with slugs and snails
Most importantly - do not let the grass grow on the site. Mow your lawn regularly and weed your garden beds. The soil should not be with large lumps under which slugs can live.
After mowing the grass, remove the hay, otherwise slugs will certainly start up under it, very fond of heat and humidity. In general, try to demolish all sorts of heaps with grass and weeds in one place for reheating.
If you have had apples since autumn, then collect them and do not let them rot on the ground. We haven’t been harvested this season, so much living creatures climbed by spring that now I really regret that I didn’t spend time picking fallen fruits ...
Application of lime
If the weather is dry, and precipitation is not expected in the near future, then burn the slugs with lime. Sprinkle lime on the ground in places where slug clusters have been seen and they will die from burns - they will turn black and become compost themselves. Lime treatment can be carried out regularly.
A mixture of tobacco dust and lime
This option of tillage from slugs is more effective, since there is also a burning tobacco spirit. For a square meter of area, take 30 grams of a mixture of tobacco powder with lime. The best time for powdering the soil is in the evening. At this time, the slugs become active and crawl out of their hiding places in search of food.
Corn flour
Cornmeal is very effective in killing slugs. This flour contains substances that are attractive, but destructive to slugs. Having tasted the bait, the slugs quickly die.
This method is probably the most paradoxical, it seems that the food is delicious - corn flour, and the slugs eat the treat with appetite. But their digestive system can't digest corn, and they end up dying after tasting such a delectable product. To some extent, this death is humane - to die from delicious food is at least not offensive ...
beer trap
Bury the beer can in the ground, leaving only the lid, there should be some beer left in the bottom of the can, which will attract slugs. Having climbed into the jar, they will never come back again, poisoned by beer.
Dry mustard for snails and slugs
Another good way to cauterize large slugs is to treat their areas with dry mustard powder. All slugs will die, new ones will appear only after some time. Well, if you regularly carry out mustard treatment, then they will completely disappear.
laying traps
Slugs can be lured and destroyed with traps. Boards, burlap, some fallen leaves and plucked weeds can serve as traps. Slugs will soon settle under them, and your task will be to destroy these nurseries.
You can open the boards and work the soil under them with lime, or you can simply collect all the slugs and snails and eliminate them. If the traps are opened every day for a week, then the slug population will be significantly reduced. But, of course, this struggle is endless. Slugs will appear again and again ...
Sweet bait method
If you spend a lot of time in the country, then every evening you can “feed” slugs and snails with watermelon and melon crusts, and in the mornings collect the eaters who are seduced by the delicacy along with the crusts and take them to the trash in a bag. Or burn with lime or mustard already in the bag after collection.
Use of chemical control agents
Try Thunderstorm or Meta - they kill slugs quickly. The main thing is to hit them directly, that is, the traps will still have to be used, whatever one may say.
However, chemistry can spoil the soil, and you yourself can somehow grab chymoses. Therefore, be careful not to cultivate the garden during the ripening period.
Everyone knows that if spring is a hot time for a gardener, then summer is a time of nightmares associated with a possible invasion of the garden and garden by pests of all stripes and sizes. And often it becomes a reality. In recent years, pest invasions have become more frequent, which previously did not show such mass activity. These are snails and slugs. For example, gardeners in the Leningrad region have been suffering from them for the past few years. Gluttonous mollusks do not disdain anything, but prefer the most tender, young sprouts and flowers. And when there are a lot of them, then you can say goodbye to the hopes of harvesting a rich harvest.
How to deal with slugs and snails in the garden and in the garden? The most reliable way, of course, is to bypass the site from morning to night and, collecting the pest, destroy it en masse. But, firstly, then it is necessary that all the neighbors start the same hunt, because “foreign” snails will immediately come to the vacant place. Secondly, especially in rainy summers, mollusks actively breed, and then instead of a summer vacation, you get a summer that has gone to the constant, daily collection of slimy plant eaters.You also need to take into account that snails are nocturnal creatures, and during the day they hide from human eyes, waiting for the shadow.
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Common ways to deal with snails and slugs
To begin with, it is worth trying to get rid of snails on the site in the spring. Snails wait out the cold season, hiding in the ground. Therefore, in the spring it is worth turning over all open places with a rake. By opening the top layer of the earth, you can open the shelters of mollusks. From spring frosts, they will die without waiting for heat.
When spring comes into its own and plants, including weeds, together reach for the sun, it's time to start getting rid of excess vegetation in the beds in order to deprive snails and slugs of shelter and excess food. And also to prepare a place for future battles.
You can plant strong-smelling plants among the beds: onions, garlic, sage, parsley, etc. Their smell will scare away the pest.
Many recommend filling the soil under cultivated plants with mulch. Snails prefer moist soil without much obstruction, so mulching with something dry and prickly is unlikely to be to their liking. Mulch can serve as needles, sawdust, straw, bark, prickly stems, etc. They do not like snails and ashes, and crushed eggshells. But these snail control products work until the first rain. After that, you will have to fill everything again.
The earth can also be covered with ground pepper, mustard (dry), etc. You can dig a furrow around the beds and pour slaked lime or lime with ash and tobacco dust into it. Snails do not like these substances, especially considering that their most vulnerable spot is the abdomen, and they try to avoid them. We also recommend laying out nettles, usually snails and slugs avoid it, but in a famine year and with a large population they also eat it.
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You can have snails and slugs natural enemies on the site: hedgehogs, toads, lizards, etc. One hedgehog can eat the number of snails, whose total weight will be equal to its weight.
Getting rid of garden snails and slugs with traps
Still, the most effective way to deal with snails is to collect the pest manually. To simplify this procedure, you can lay out pieces of plywood, slate, fabric on the site, where the snails could find shelter for the day. Then it will be enough to go through the site, turning over the "traps" and collecting the mollusks hidden there in a container with a saline solution in which they die. You can scatter under the "shelters" and funds such as "Slug", the snails will die, since the product is poisonous.
If you are the owner of a shady garden, or in some parts of your site there is increased soil moisture, then snails can settle in the territory. Many gardeners believe that snails are harmless, but they are not.
It is hard for many to imagine that there can be harm from a snail in the garden. This small clumsy creature, it would seem, looks weak and defenseless, but it does a lot of harm to the crop. A person is used to getting angry at flies, suspicious beetles and larvae, but in his eyes snails look helpless. What can land mollusks do in the garden?
In nature, snails feed on various remains of vegetation and fungi, however, in your garden, the mollusk will not bother looking for plant remains, and at the first opportunity will start eating fresh shoots in early spring. And when the harvest time comes, the snails will slowly but very confidently destroy the long-awaited fruits. However, the harm of snails does not end there either - in the cold season they move straight to your cellar. A dark, damp and cool place, full of delicious fruits, becomes a paradise for the shellfish.
There are several types of snails that often settle in the garden - among them there is even a grape snail that destroys the corresponding berries at the time of their ripening. Other snails live either on fruit trees, feasting on fruits, or on the ground, where they do not mind eating berries in the first place.
Snail fight in the garden
Fighting snails is not difficult for several obvious reasons. Firstly, this creature is quite large, compared to beetles, flies or ants. It turns out to be quite simple to notice it on the leaves of a fruit tree or on a currant bush. Secondly, snails are extremely slow. They will never be able to run away from you, even if you give them a couple of hours to do so.
However, you don’t even have to catch snails, because it’s even easier to lure them. To do this, you will have to sacrifice sweet compote, which must be placed in a wide bowl near fruit trees and shrubs with fruits. It will take a long time to wait for the snails - for obvious reasons, until the mollusk crawls to the bait, ants and many other insects will have time to feast on compote from it.
However, snails will come sooner or later, because they have a very delicate sense of smell.
However, the slug is even more harmful in the garden, which not only eats plants and fruits, but also leaves behind a layer of mucus on the leaves. After the visit of the slug, the cover of the plants is torn off and deteriorated, because of which the culture can be seriously ill. Slugs look like "naked snails", that is, they have the same body shape, but are deprived of a shell. You have probably met such individuals in the garden that slowly crawl about their business and seem completely harmless. Most of them go "hunting" at night, so you can't even imagine how many of them are found in your own garden.
There are a number of methods for dealing with slugs and snails, so the easiest way is to regularly weed the area. The clams hide in the weeds and crawl out at dusk, returning to their place again in the middle of the night. Also, another tricky way suggests attracting frogs that eat slugs to the site. To do this, you need to place vessels with water at different ends of the garden, from which frogs will certainly come to drink at night. It is they who will meet with naive mollusks, which will just come out to hunt your crop.
However, attracting frogs sometimes turns out to be very difficult, and even one frog still cannot cope with an army of snails and slugs on the site. Therefore, if your garden really has a lot of mollusks, then it is better to buy a natural remedy for treating soil from snails and slugs in a gardening store. It will not harm the soil and plants, but it will be fatal to pests living on your land.
V. Kostenko
Wet, rainy weather contributes to the active development of mollusks that are harmful to the garden. Reticulated slugs and snails began to multiply with unprecedented vigor. In many horticulture, summer residents are alarmed: “These pests do not spare any plants. All lettuce, all strawberries were destroyed last season. Thousands of snails on every bush!” I wonder how gardeners fight back these most harmful, shameless mollusks?
Safe snail control
First of all, let me remind you about environmentally friendly methods of pest control.
You can shelter hedgehogs in your summer cottage. During the day, slugs hide from the sun, and at night they crawl out to robbery. Hedgehogs also rest during the day. And at dusk they go hunting. Hedgehogs do not disdain shellfish.
The toad also deserves respect as a brave exterminator of snails and slugs. Bring five toads from the meadow. Set up a shady hiding place for them. For example, a cave made of stones among an alpine hill, or put a pot of damp moss on its side, half buried in the ground. During the day, the toads will hide from the sun there, and in the evening they will stomp to work. In a German gardening encyclopedia I saw a picture of a toad smiling towards a slug crawling on a leaf. Both toads and slugs are equally active at dusk, and if during the day, you will rather see them in rainy, cloudy weather.
Especially for the fight against slugs, the industry produces molluscicides - poisonous granules. They are scattered on the beds. This substance lures and kills snails and slugs. Slugs become like transparent worms and die. But chemicals still get into the soil and are absorbed by the roots of plants.
Summer residents are more willing to use infusions of nettle, burdock. They chop this green, pour it with warm water, leave it in a dark place for three days. Filter and spray garden plants. It is curious that snails devour the nettle itself, but nettle infusions are poorly tolerated.
Some gardeners go hunting for slugs with a salt shaker. They notice a slug or a snail on a leaf - they sprinkle a pinch of salt on them. The clam melts like lard in a frying pan.
Wood ash is also quite suitable for protecting the garden and vegetable garden. Sifted, poured into a sieve and shaken over rows of plants, powdered. There are many trace elements in the ash that will be useful as a top dressing for vegetables, flowers and berry crops, and the alkali contained in it is contraindicated for mollusks. With mild poisoning, mollusks secrete protective mucus and, as it were, “molt”. And upon repeated contact with ash or superphosphate, they will die.
And here is how in the Soviet years the workers of the then famous vegetable growing company Leto treated harmful snails and crickets. Vegetable growers poured beer into bowls, and elusive crickets gathered there for a drink, got drunk and drowned. And recently, in one foreign publication, I came across such a picture: a jar was dug into the ground flush with the edges of the garden bed. Above it is a conical plastic roof. Beer is poured into a jar. It's a trap for slugs! Foreign slugs, like crickets, are also very greedy for a low-alcohol drink. Beer needs to be changed in two days - to throw drowned people into compost.
There is evidence that snails and slugs do not tolerate black coffee. Shall we try to treat them with coffee grounds? Let's make coffee stronger, pour it into the sprayer - and into battle!
Strawberry lovers have noticed that slugs and snails avoid contact with needles and sawdust of coniferous plants - pine and spruce. And sprinkle the ground between the bushes with needles or sawdust. Perhaps the thorns irritate the delicate soles of pests? But maybe the reason is different. Coniferous plants contain volatile resinous substances. As an experiment, I propose to try a water-turpentine emulsion. No one has done such experiments yet, but try what happens. A tablespoon of turpentine per liter of water plus 10 g of laundry soap (for sticking) will, in my opinion, be enough. Make 2-3 treatments of problem plants in the evening, with an interval of a day or two.
Among wild plants, there are occasionally those that bypass snails and slugs. For example, ferns. But what if we prepare infusions from their leaves or rhizomes and process the garden? Write to us what happens.
Fighting snails - advice from a professional
Gardeners need to know the biology of pests, said E. V. Volodina, candidate of biological sciences, to me. - Let's remember once again that mollusks harm at night, and hide in shady places during the day,; under lumps of soil. I lay out the fragments of slate, boards, burdock leaves “inside out” up, and in a day I inspect, collect in a bucket and: destroy. And so that the slugs do not penetrate the garden, I sprinkle the ground along the edge with ground superphosphate. The width of the strip is 10 centimeters.
They crawl across the border - they are finished. Superphosphate is a valuable fertilizer and protection for plants. It is not necessary to pour a lot, just to powder the earth. After rain, the dressing must be resumed.
Hold on, snails!
A year ago, we exchanged our garden for a dacha in another area. We already thought that we had been running the household for so many years, we were trained in everything, but no! We encountered a new pest that we had not thought about before. In the new place there were many garden snails. They ate the strawberry crop in one day, and the flowers were not allowed to bloom - they ate the petals. I began to look for how to get them out. I collected a collection of tips, checked: something more, something less, but they all work! I share with you now.
Mow the lawn more often. Snails love dampness and live in tall grass.
Put things in order. Boards, stones, pieces of plastic and metal - the same source of dampness and coolness, ideal for a snail.
Fill the passages between the beds with sawdust or fine gravel. It is difficult for a snail to crawl on dry loose soil.
Make a trap: take a plastic bottle cut to a height of 15 cm and dig it into the ground along the very edges. Fill to the top with beer, kvass or syrup. From above, cover loosely with a bag or something else, which, like an umbrella, will protect the trap from rain. Ready! Snails will crawl on the smell of beer and drown.
Spray the plants with garlic infusion (grate 100 g of garlic, pour 1 n boiling water, leave for a day. This is a concentrate: it must be diluted with water 1:20 before spraying).
Collect snails with your hands and put them in a jar of gasoline or salt. Unpleasant and inhumane, but it works.
B.C. KULICHKINA, Vyborg
And on our plot of 12 acres, which is located on the Karelian Isthmus, where there is plenty of moisture, snails and slugs were just a disaster until this year. And we collected them, especially after the rains, in large numbers in the beds, bushes, and fences. And so I read that guinea fowl cope well with this misfortune. It is necessary to accustom them by giving snails and slugs to the diet, but they do not rake the earth like chickens, and do not destroy other pests - those in the ground, in leaves, under bushes and trees.
It was a task for me. While the earth was freed from hibernation and preparing to once again release pests, I started building a small house for a bird, which, in my opinion, was supposed to help cope with snails and slugs. And three charming chickens settled in our so-called chicken coop with a small aviary.
Of course, I did not expect much help from four-month-old Ukrainians. When the snails climbed and the slugs appeared, after the next collection, he treated the feathered household several times, which at first with caution, and after the third treat, accepted them like a delicacy. Despite my wife's certain fears that they would peck at her seedlings and berries instead of slugs and snails, I released them to freedom within the fenced area. The fears turned out to be unfounded.
But the snails and slugs, from which the eyes were rippling, miraculously began to disappear, and with them the caterpillars and ants.
But the strawberries, which were inaccessible to our "nurses", as they were fenced, were invaded by ants, which began to eat up ripe berries. My wife had to make an application to visit these beds.
To our surprise, the massacre of the ants took place in the most amazing way. At the same time, the chickens were not interested in berries.
To some, this business will seem troublesome - to keep even three chickens, they also require care and attention. Despite their omnivorous nature, they need food and mineral supplements, but it's worth it. After all, they have also become laying hens and daily, if not three, then two fresh eggs are brought. And replenishing the compost pit with chicken manure is also a plus.
I do not deny other methods of dealing with snails and slugs, but for me this one is the most effective, environmentally friendly and triple useful.
Vasily Vasilyevich Logvinenko
Although snails are not quick ...
About ten years ago, we, living in the north, did not know, and never heard of garden snails. When they appeared, it was rumored that they brought this mollusk with a container from the Baltic. Be that as it may, but in Karelia snails bred almost instantly and in large numbers. Apparently, this is facilitated by a cool and humid summer. And now getting garden products that are clean, not soiled by snails and not eaten by them has become a problem.
Eats up everything
Snails are found everywhere - in gardens, in fields and forests. Even in distant forest clearings, where we usually collect medicinal plants, these mollusks have bred, probably, they “arrive” there in cars of berry pickers and mushroom pickers, and in timber trucks.
The snail is so omnivorous that the Colorado potato beetle seems harmless compared to it. Although he harms, but selectively, chemicals can be used against him. And this seemingly slow creature eats everything, even nettles, horseradish and all other bitter and burning plants. It eats berries and fruits right on the trees, and apples, for example, can be spoiled at a height of 4-5 m! What to do, how to deal with this creature?
I manage pests in several ways.
Manual collection
First of all, you need to get rid of weeds, especially gout under the bushes. We try to keep the area clean. Nothing grows even under fruit trees, because snails in the grass are a real paradise. They love wet weather, because it is difficult for them to crawl "on dry land" along the stems and leaves. But after the rains and growing, they crawl out in dozens, climbing the bushes.
This is the best time to "hunt" these pests. I take a household bucket, dissolve in 1 liter of water 2 tbsp. l. table salt, put on gloves and, one by one, drop the snails into the brine. They immediately hide in their shells, and then salted. After half an hour, not a single snail moves.
Scheduled fee
In hot weather, snails like to hide under objects lying on the ground - leaves, heaps of herbs, building materials. I help them with this. I lay out pieces of wave slate, boards 30-40 cm long, and other wooden parts around the entire perimeter of the site every meter.
In the hot afternoon, I take the same bucket of brine, a small short broom and collect clams on a “planned” basis. I pick up the plank to which the snails are glued, and with one movement of the broom I dump them into the bucket. In one round, over a hundred pests turn out to be in the bucket! So I do 2-3 times a week 8.
But there is one trick: it is impossible for the board to lie tightly on the ground - the snails simply will not crawl under it. Therefore, I do this: to one end I nail a round timber with a diameter of 2-3 cm or a bar of the same section across.
Framing beds
We have a garden bed in the shade of the barn with horseradish, which is indispensable when canning vegetables. It is located just in such a place where the breeding conditions for snails are the best. Until the 2014 season, we were unable to keep horseradish leaves intact. Snails literally attacked in hordes!
But I managed to solve this problem. I framed this garden bed out of used galvanized sheet metal. From it I cut strips 24-25 cm wide. One edge, stepping back from the edge 4-5 cm, bent at an angle of 45-50 degrees. He also took dry spruce stakes, sharply hewed the upper part, soaked it with engine oil and stuck them in, taking into account the length of the steel strips along the perimeter of the bed (Fig. 1, position 1). Then I cut the sides of the bed vertically and set the metal strips behind the stakes, as shown in the picture. Each sheet overlaps the next in length.
In coming up with this design, I used my observations of snails. When a mollusk crawls onto a vertical surface (and this happens very often), and there is an obstacle in the form of a bar on it, then it cannot move further. It also fails to turn around and slide down. So the snail is trapped where it dries up.
I thought that the snails would crawl onto the iron sheets, but they would not be able to climb further, since the sharp angle of the edge
iron will not allow them to climb up. And so it happened. About a week later I looked, are there snails under the edge of the iron? There were quite a few of them.
So the bed with horseradish was reliably protected. Leaves no longer gnawed. Therefore, I decided that next season I would also equip strawberry beds.
For those who do not have enough iron sheet, you can make a frame according to another option, shown in fig. 2. Framing is done with boards (if they are narrow, you can knock two pieces together) or slate. They are also supported by stakes driven in from the outside. So that the snails do not crawl over the boards, we nail them on their edges or fasten them with screws before installing strips of iron or aluminum 4-5 cm wide, just as in the first case, at an angle.
Garden on the horns or watching snails
The nightmare of any summer resident is the death of his favorite plantings. And, unfortunately, this "horror" can now often be seen with your own eyes in your own garden. In the role of the main and ruthless villain - an ordinary snail. However, considering how much harm it brings and how much effort it takes to fight it, it is just right to call it extraordinary.
Where the babies come from?
“Snail, snail, stick out your horns ...” - so my girlfriends and I sang in our early childhood when we found this creature. Admired them, touched, rejoiced. And then I didn’t think at all that this “honey” and “cutie” was not at all as harmless as we thought. How many different tips on how to deal with snails and their slug pals have I read in the last two years! Many of them I tried to apply and, regardless of their effectiveness, I concluded that the fight is a fight, but prevention is more important. What should be understood by it? And the fact that you should not allow snails to breed.
Therefore, from early spring to the end of summer, I recently took it as an iron rule not to be lazy to go around my garden in the mornings and evenings (and in rainy weather and during the day) and harvest these slimy creatures. Dirty, of course, this business (as friends laugh - not for the faint of heart), but where to go? If I'm not them, then they're me. Or rather, my landings (which, in general, are just a part of myself).
I don’t just walk past the flower beds where plants that are especially tasty for snails grow, but I also set traps. After all, as you know, they like to hide in dark places during the day. Therefore, I lay out small strips of slate along the beds, and early in the morning I turn over and shake off the "lodgers" stuck to their wrong side in a bucket.
Last summer was warm and humid, it rained almost every day. And it was then that I first realized how many pests live on my site. I also understood that this is not the limit of their ability to be fruitful.
So we, summer residents, often think about it? And it would be necessary, because the struggle with the consequences, and not with the cause, is running in a circle.
If so, let's think. Nature begins to wake up in spring, and snails crawl out of their shelters to feast on tender young leaves. And while the vegetables in the garden have not grown, they gobble up primroses for a sweet soul. I noticed that they have a favorite flower - colchicum. You can often see that its young foliage is all eaten away. This flower is also so convenient for snails and slugs that you can easily hide from the sun in its rosettes. And in autumn, pests are very fond of clustering around rudbecks, which are popularly called golden balls. Therefore, when examining my possessions, I first of all pay attention to these plants.
It's never too late
Who said snails crawl slowly? Of course, everything is known in comparison, but I can say with all responsibility that in a short summer night they easily cover a distance of at least 3 m. This is probably not the limit of their capabilities, I did not measure it on purpose. But judging by the "schedule" of the destruction of my landings, I'm not too mistaken.
“So, excuse me,” an attentive reader may notice, “what then to do with the collected snails and slugs?” O! This should be discussed separately. I don’t go on my daily rounds empty-handed – I carry a bucket of water in which I dissolve a little washing powder or dishwashing detergent. What for? And then, that the chemicals contained in them act detrimentally on pests, almost instantly corroding their mucous membrane. If you just throw them into clean water, they will only say thank you for this: they will swim a little, and they will crawl out onto land without any problems.
But! If you make it so that bathing can be delayed, this can also become a means of dealing with snails, and in the truest sense of the word, and even environmentally friendly. After all, these horned creatures are not inherently waterfowl creatures; too long a stay in the water is also fatal for them. This is how I sometimes do it: if during a round I don’t have a container with a solution of chemistry with me (or I’m too lazy to carry it with me), then I throw the snails collected in the palm of my hand right into the middle of my decorative reservoir. And they find themselves in a hopeless situation. They cannot swim (there are no fins or tails), which means they will not reach the shore. And even if they crawl out onto the leaves of aquatic plants growing there, they still don’t have long to live. Firstly, these plants are inedible for them, and secondly, frogs are also on the alert, and besides, they always want to eat. Often my five-year-old granddaughter helps me fight snails. And it's funny for me to watch how she rejoices, sending snails on a "long voyage". She has such a game.
In the magazine, I have repeatedly seen advice that from snails it is necessary to lay spruce branches on the beds. I don’t know, maybe there are such “vigorous” spruce trees somewhere, but my pests live very calmly right on them and feed on young needles, not at all embarrassed that they can prick themselves. To my dismay, I noticed that they now took up the habit of hiding also in my favorite spherical thujas, as well as thickets of undersized autumn asters. I don't know how to get them out of there.
But I have already learned how to spoil their good life in compost heaps (which for them is akin to a restaurant: it is warm and full of food). It's simple: on top of the organics I lay out all the same strips of slate, as well as pieces of plastic wrap. You just have to remember to look through these hunting places every day and destroy the hidden pests. So sometimes we ourselves create comfortable conditions for them and produce them without thinking. Therefore, it is necessary to start the fight with the beginning of the summer season and continue until closing. And it's never too late to do so.
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