Slugs and snails are widespread backyard pests that may trigger injury to a variety of crops, from greens and fruits to flowers and decorative crops. They voraciously feed on the tender leaves, buds, fruits, and stems, abandoning holes and discolored patches. A big infestation can completely devastate your backyard.
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Snail and Slug Fundamentals
Slugs and snails should not bugs; they’re soft-bodied mollusks. The principle distinction between slugs and snails is that the latter have a shell which is made largely of calcium carbonate, like egg shells.
Additionally known as gastropods, which suggests “stomach-foot”, snails and slugs journey on one “foot”, and go away a tell-tale path of shiny, slimy mucus wherever they go. In reality, it’s the presence of this slime that may allow you to distinguish slug and snail injury from that attributable to different pests.
Slugs and snails are hermaphroditic, that means every particular person has each female and male reproductive organs. This implies they’re able to reproduce shortly and prolifically, and consequently do plenty of injury for those who don’t management their populations.
One of the best 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 way in which you domesticate and preserve your backyard can have a huge impact on stopping pest populations.
Scale back Slug and Snail Habitat
Slugs and snails feed primarily at evening, so throughout the day they conceal in moist, darkish locations below leaves, pots, planters, thick groundcovers like ivy and ice plant, and mulch. To make your backyard much less slug-friendly, you’ll need to both cut back and take away their hiding locations, or use them as a lure (See beneath):
- Transfer soggy leaf or straw mulch away out of your crops 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 crops 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 tougher for slugs to put eggs and overwinter.
- Put away your unused pots, planks of wooden, and different backyard muddle that might present hiding locations for slugs, snails and their eggs.
Water Within the Morning
The easiest way to assist stop slug and snail injury is to maintain plant and soil surfaces as dry as potential in a single day. All the time water very early within the morning reasonably than within the night, so surfaces are dry by the tip of the day.
Keep away from overhead watering, as moist leaves are extra weak to break from slugs and snails in addition to from fungal illness. In areas with excessive rainfall or humidity, give crops additional area within the backyard to advertise good air circulation.
One of the best follow is to change to drip irrigation on a timer. This does three actually good issues on your backyard. Drip irrigation:
- saves water by irrigating immediately on the root zone, by any mulch, saving you water and cash. With a timer in your system, you may 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 might be thick, leathery, furry or waxy resist their assaults, as do crops which might be very fragrant. The place you may, select crops that slugs don’t take care of, like cyclamen, ferns, geraniums, lavender, nasturtiums, poppies, rhodededrons, rosemary, or sage.
Use Companion Planting
Some fragrant crops, reminiscent of rosemary, chamomile, chives, and garlic naturally repel slugs and snails. Planting most of these crops close to or round different crops which might be vulnerable to slug and snail injury may also help to discourage them, in case your downside is gentle.
Different crops are very engaging to snails and slugs, and may be planted subsequent to the backyard to distract and lure them. Good lure crops for slugs embrace chervil, marigold, and thyme. Mix lure crops with handpicking to successfully management average slug and snail populations.
Bodily Controls
Handpicking
Some of the fundamental and efficient strategies of controlling slugs and snails is by merely hand-picking them out of your crops. That is finest carried out 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 possibly can 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 preserve 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 for those who don’t destroy them, you’ll have to take them very far out of your yard, or they’ll simply come again.
Handpicking for a number of nights in a row will significantly cut back pest populations. As soon as the inhabitants has noticeably declined, weekly hand-picking ought to be adequate.
Backyard Cloches
Cloches are small plastic or glass domes that go over particular person crops to guard them from backyard pests in addition to from frost. They’re nice at guarding small seedlings towards slugs and snails, in addition to birds, squirrels and rabbits, as a result of the pests can not crawl up and over them.
Take into account that backyard cloches are like mini greenhouses, and they also create additional warmth and condensation round your crops. Ensure to elevate them off or keep away from utilizing them on scorching days, so that you don’t overheat your crops.
You should buy pre-made cloches, or make your individual DIY cloches from repurposed plastic 2-liter bottles or milk jugs with the bottoms lower 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 may lure these pests beneath board traps or flower pots that you simply place all through your yard.
You possibly can 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 increase the board simply excessive sufficient for slugs and snails to crawl beneath. Ensure each the board traps and the soil are good and moist while you lay them down.
Elevate boards every 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
Current research from Oregon State University has discovered essentially the most profitable attractant for slugs is bread dough. Affiliate professor Rory McDonnell mentioned, “They actually, actually prefer it. Bread dough outperformed every part.” In a single occasion, over 18,000 snails had 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 Entice
This “bread dough” recipe is irresistible to slugs and snails, making it tremendous straightforward to lure 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 individual out of a mason jar or giant, plastic yogurt container with just a few snail-size holes lower into the lid.
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Bury the lure on the sting of your backyard in order that the opening of the lure is degree with the highest of the soil. That manner, slugs and snails can fall simply into it.
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Verify 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 drawn to the yeast in beer as a lot as in bread dough, so inserting a number of small bowls of low-cost, yeasty beer as traps on the perimeters of your backyard may be an efficient solution to management a small pest inhabitants.
As a result of each bread dough and beer are so engaging, you wish to place your traps on the perimeters of your backyard beds, in order to attract the slugs and snails away from your tender crops.
Your lure 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 sort to cut back evaporation and stop rain dilution.
Be sure you bury the traps in order that they’re practically degree with the soil, and alter the beer each few days to take care of its effectiveness.
You should purchase ready-made slug and snail traps at backyard provide shops, or you can also make your individual by burying a mason jar, small bowl, or giant, plastic yogurt container so the rim is at floor degree, and inserting a lid with one or two snail-size holes lower into it over the container.
Where to find slug/snail traps.
Diatomaceous Earth (DE)
Diatomaceous earth (DE) is a pure powder produced from the fossilized stays of tiny aquatic organisms known as diatoms that slugs and snails (and most hard-shelled bugs) discover troublesome and dessicating to crawl by.
Limitations of dry diatomaceous earth heaped in a band 1 inch excessive and three inches vast round your crops have been proven to be efficient at deterring slugs, in addition to earwigs, mites, ants, fleas, capsule 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 private home.
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 may as well let your geese or chickens unfastened in your backyard or orchard to make fast work of slugs and snails there, in case your crops are giant sufficient to deal with pecking and hopping round them.
Use Helpful Nematodes
Nematodes are a category of tiny, useful worms that may be utilized to the soil to manage many forms 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 you will need to select the fitting nematodes for the job you want them to do. The nematode varieties known as Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita and Phasmarhabditis californica, particularly, kill slugs and snails. They’re the one types of nematode which might be 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 response to instructions on the package deal. As a result of they’re residing creatures, after you purchase them, they’ll must be saved in a darkish container within the fridge, and used shortly.
Slug-killing nematodes may be bought from gardening provide shops in Europe, however should not but out there 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 may be efficient when used together 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 obstacles may be an efficient solution to deter them—although they have an inclination to work higher in small functions like potted crops, reasonably than giant backyard beds. Right here’s learn how to finest use them:
- Make protecting collars on your seedlings by wrapping them with a strip of 2-sided copper tape or flashing that’s at the very least 3 inches vast so you may bury a portion of it 1 or 2 inches beneath the soil to stop pests from crawling beneath the barrier.
- Nail or glue 2-inch vast copper foil or tape across the base of your pots and patio containers. Be 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.
- Defend your bushes by wrapping a 4-inch vast 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 enable the copper band to slip outward and develop because the trunk grows.
To be efficient towards slugs and snails, copper obstacles must be at the very least 2 inches vast, and made with a excessive proportion 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 might be particularly made for shielding electrical guitars and different electronics.
Copper obstacles are efficient till they turn out to be tarnished. Once they do tarnish (which is able to differ based mostly in your area and local weather), you may clear them with a vinegar resolution.
Where to find high-quality copper tape.
Iron Phosphate Bait
Iron phosphate bait pellets—out there below many model names, together with Sluggo and Slug Magic—will trigger snails and slugs to cease consuming, nevertheless it may well take a number of days to per week for the snails to die.
Iron phosphate is a pure mineral, and subsequently it’s acceptable to be used in natural farming. Nonetheless, iron-based slug pellets should not utterly non-toxic to different animals. These pellets can kill earthworms and hurt animals or folks that ingest giant portions of them, so preserve the package deal locked away from kids, pets, and compost bins. However iron phosphate slug pellets are nonetheless a a lot safer various to metaldehyde slug baits.
Sprinkle snail bait pellets over the backyard soil, close to, however not on crops which might be engaging to them, or close to their favourite hiding locations, reminiscent of below planters and irrigation packing containers, near partitions and fences, or different moist, protected areas.
Apply the bait within the late afternoon or night to reap the benefits of 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 inclined to return to meals supply websites.
Gentle watering after utility 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 may 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 straightforward to search out in backyard facilities, and they’re extremely efficient. Nonetheless, metaldehyde baits are toxic, significantly to canine and cats, and the pelleted type may be very engaging to canine. Some metaldehyde merchandise are formulated with “carbaryl”, which is poisonous to earthworms and soil-inhabiting useful bugs.
Metaldehyde shouldn’t be accredited for natural farming. Don’t use metaldehyde snail baits the place kids and pets may encounter them. Keep away from getting metaldehyde bait on crops, particularly fruit and veggies.
AVOID: Salt or Ammonia
Each slugs and snails may be killed very successfully by both sprinkling them with salt or spraying them with an ammonia resolution. However these chemical substances additionally kill crops and soil life fairly readily, and so they can accumulate in your soil, so they don’t seem to be really helpful 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 – Widespread Myths
Opposite to fashionable 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.
In reality, some experiments show that snails and slugs don’t appear to thoughts espresso grounds or egg shells one bit. And since calcium is a vital a part of a snail’s food plan (to take care of their shell), they could truly be drawn to 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 depend on them for slug management.
