in your garden
In Your Garden
In Your Garden
Copper barrier
Corry’s Slug and Snail Copper Tape Barrier
Horticultural fabric (row cover)
Easy Gardener Plant and Seed Blanket
Baits containing iron phosphate
Bayer Advanced Natria Snail & Slug Killer Bait, Bonide Slug Magic, Escar-Go!, Lilly Miller Worry Free, Miracle-Gro Nature’s Care Slug and Snail Control, Monterey Sluggo, Natural Guard by Ferti-lome Slug & Snail Bait
While Californians treat snails as pests, our pesky garden mollusks were actually imported from France during the Gold Rush—for French restaurants in San Francisco. Unfortunately, a few escaped… and the rest is horticultural and agricultural history. Snails and slugs are closely related. They both have soft, oblong bodies and produce quantities of slime to help them move around. The most obvious difference is that snails have shells.
Are your vegetable and flower seedlings being devoured overnight? Are you finding large ragged holes in your prized ornamentals? Do slime trails cross your walkways? If so, your garden is probably harboring snails and/or slugs.
Snails and slugs are active mostly at night and on dark, cloudy days. On sunny days they can be found in moist, shady spots. If potted plants are being eaten, look for eggs and young snails around the inside edges of the pots, and find slugs under pots. Eggs resemble small pearls and are laid in masses of up to 100. When you find eggs, crush them or scoop them into a plastic bag, seal it, and put the bag in the garbage.
Once snails or slugs invade your garden, it may take time to keep their numbers down. Try two or more of the following control strategies.
Before using barriers, pick snails and slugs by hand for a few nights.
Before using barriers, pick snails and slugs by hand for a few nights.
Many species of ground beetles kill snails and slugs. Most of these beetles are large (1 to 2 inches), black, tank-like creatures. They are found in the same moist habitats as their prey: under rocks, boards, leaves, etc. Avoid killing these helpful bugs.
Leave a few dead snail and slug bodies on the soil surface to attract more snails and slugs and make your collecting easier. (Large piles will breed flies.) Or, bury crushed mollusks three or four inches underground to add nutrients to the soil and avoid fly problems.
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