Outsmarting Snails

[bonsai barry]

I routinely try to place my trees where the snails can't get them. Sometimes, I'm successful; sometimes I"m not. My questions is this: How do the snails detect plants that they can't see? Smell?

 

[oakandwalnut]

Have you tried wrapping copper wire around the pot? I have heard that the snails will not go over a copper wire. I have never tried this.

 

[edprocoat]

Bonsai Barry, you need to scare the snails off. Get some Court Boullion and keep it near you bench and whenever you come near your Bonsai say things like " Man, I would love some Escargot for dinner tonight!" To answer your question, those two little antanna on their slimy little heads are actually S.G.T.P.S receivers, thats Snail Global Tree Positioning Satellite for the un-edumacated peoples. Thats how they find them.

I will tell you what works every time for snail detterrent though, salt. In any form rock salt, table salt, snails curl up like a leech when they hit the stuff. I would just make sure you do not get it into your plants though. Seriously, I found this out as a child when a friend of mine introduced me to snail abuse using salt, we would collect them and place them on a pile of salt and watch them writhe in agony with foam coming out of them until they crawled off it. I wonder how washing the legs of your table with a strong solution of dissolved epsom salt or table salt would work? I know both of them including the rock saly used in water softeners work on snails.

ed

 

[Stan Kengai]

I used to have a real problem with snails and, more specifically, slugs, too. While researching soil components, I discovered that Diatomaceous Earth is a natural insecticide, used in its powdered form to kill bedbugs, mites, pillbugs, snails and slugs, among other things. Diatomite, commercially available as a spill absorbent, acts very similar to products like Turface, and it's significantly cheaper. Long story short, I no longer have any problems with slugs or snails. I will often find them on the bottom of pots, but never any evidence they've been on my plants. The only caveat, you have to make sure the diatomite is from a freshwater source, usually by looking up the product's Material Safety Data Sheet.

 

[Bill S]

I hesitate to say it but a nice saucer full of beer, the little buggers (slime and all) will get crocked and drown (litterally) in thier sorrows, then you get to gloat as you toss the bodies, hehehehehehehehehehe.

 

[rockm]

Beer does the trick AND snails and slugs have a taste for the cheap stuff,even what's left over in your empties. Pour them into a saucer, leave it out on the benches and wait for the mollusk bacchanal...