Goin' on a Snail Hunt, Gonna Catch a Big One! I'm Not Afraid, What's that Up Ahead?

One of the most common and bothersome pests in a garden of any kind, not just a cooking garden, are snails and slugs. Some of the favorite foods of these pesky creatures are seedlings, strawberries, artichokes, and tomatoes to name a few. They also like foliage on some fruit trees with citrus trees being especially attractive to them. Protecting you cooking garden from these critters requires understanding them and intercepting them before they attack your crops.

Snails and slugs prefer cooler temperatures and are more active at night and on overcast days. You will see them more active in areas with mild winters. Severe cold weather and hot weather motivates them to hibernate. In the winter time they will hibernate in the topsoil and in the heat they will seek out cooler locations like under boards or decks. When they hibernate they seal themselves inside a membrane and this is when you will see them attached to walls, trees and fences.

The key to minimizing the impact snails and slugs have on your garden is to go hunting. First, remove as many "hideouts" as you can. During the day these creatures will be found in some common places. Remove boards, stones, debris, leafy low hanging branches, weedy areas around the bottom of tress, and dense ground and fence covers like ivy.

The remaining hiding places that you cannot remove is where you will hunt them down and remove them. They are easy picking during the day in areas like the lower ledges on fences, under decks or most any place cooler and shadier. You will want to draw them out by watering late in the afternoon and then going hunting with flashlights in the evening, after they've become active. (This can become a fun learning activity for small children.) Once you have gone hunting daily for a while, you will notice the population may be reduced significantly enough to do weekly searches for the pests.

To dispose of the prey once it's been caught, you have a variety of options. You can simply put them in a plastic bag and throw them in the trash, or you can "recycle" them by smashing them and leaving them in the garden, or if you have a compost pile, drop them in a bucket of soapy water and add them to the pile. since you were a kid you probably have known that salt will kill slugs and snails, but the thing about using salt in and around your garden is the you don't want to increase the salinity of your soil. Save the salt for your table once you've harvested from your cooking garden.

There are some ways to draw out your prey when you are hunting them, especially in the early stages of the hunt. You can bait and trap the pests with inverted melon rinds. You can also use small boards elevated about one inch off the ground. Beer baited traps can work, but require a lot of maintenance. Another option is to use the baits you can purchase at the store, but keep in mind that these baits are harmful chemicals and can effect dogs, cats and other small animals, it can damage the favorable earth dwelling creatures like earthworms and beetles, and you need to avoid getting the bait on plants, especially vegetables.

Barriers can be effective at keeping these pests out of your planting beds. You can put up a copper wall about six inches high and set into the ground a few inches which acts like an "electric fence". There is copper foil that can be wrapped around your planter boxes, and tree trunks. These will repel snails and slugs for several years. Copper sulfate or a mixture of copper sulfate and hydrated lime, Bordeaux, can be applied directly on the trunk of a tree and will repel for about a year. If it is mixed with a white paint, it can be effective for up to two years.

These are the safest effective methods to rid and keep your cooking garden free of these pests.

(Courtesty of @son-of-satire)

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