The War on Snails

Some low-tech gadgety goodness for the gardeners out there.

A few years back I experimented a bit with how to deal with slugs and snails in the garden. I planted up two trugs with pak choi and placed them either side of my shed door. I sprinkled organic slug pellets generously on and around one, and banded the other with spiky copper tape, about two-thirds up. Then I waited a few weeks to see how both trugs fared.

The pics below show the results. Copper tape won by a mile.

Pak choi with slug pellets
Pak choi with slug pellets
Pak choi with copper tape
Pak choi with copper tape

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s generally pricey stuff (I paid a tenner a roll for mine), but ALDI Ireland are doing rolls for a competitive €3.49 per roll on Sunday, July 20, 2014.

Another good population control is beer traps throughout the garden. Half fill a water-tight container with your chosen beer, and leave it sitting near whatever plants are suffering most. At a half-day course in the Botanic Gardents a few years back, I was told that ale was the favourite tipple of gastropods, and comparisons in our garden do seem to confirm that.

Any other solutions working well in your garden? Let me know in the comments!

Author: smurphy

Writer, mother, gardener, geek...