Snails are very active during the winter months. Photo / 123RF
Snails are very active during the winter months. Photo / 123RF
Try these four highly effective methods to tackle slugs and snails in the garden without chemicals.
Did you know there are around 1400 varieties of slugs and snails in New Zealand? They are everywhere over winter and feast on your plants throughout the night, much to the dismay of thewinter gardener.
Actually, most of the slugs and snails that eat your garden are not native to New Zealand and have travelled here from other countries. Like many other introduced pests in New Zealand, they can be very destructive.
Remember, slugs and snails are in our gardens all year round, but they inflict the most damage over winter and spring. During the warmth of the summer sun, they tend to stay in dark, damp places.
Slugs and snails venture out after dark. This time of year, I have noticed they start appearing after 8pm and in the spring, around 10pm.
Most snails live unseen in the fallen leaf litter on the ground; under your mulch or around dark, damp places. They move around on a flat muscular foot and they eat by using a tongue-like organ called a radula, which is covered with rows of teeth. Slugs and snails feed on fruits, vegetables, the soft stems of plants, as well as leaf tissue.
They are especially partial to new transplants, as these are soft and tasty. That is why a newly planted bed can disappear overnight, causing much despair to a loving gardener the following morning.
Slugs use the cover of darkness to wreak havoc on your plants. Photo / 123RF
Plants such as the brassica family, lettuce and spinach seem to attract a lot more slugs and snails because they grow an abundance of leaves tightly together. You can find them nestled into the stems, right where the leaves attach, and they enjoy the cool shelter during the day, ready to feast at night. Peel the leaves back on your winter broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and spinach to find them snoozing, or look for the poo trail they leave behind them as they munch.
Here’s how to control slugs and snails without resorting to toxic chemicals
Natural predators The tiger slug, originating in Europe, can be a beneficial pest, as they will eat other smaller slugs. Note though that they will still eat your veges, but can help control smaller, more vulnerable slugs in a natural way.
Hedgehogs and birds are also natural predators, so welcome them wholeheartedly into your garden at this time of year. There’s plenty to go around, and no fruit to protect from the birds.
Decoy snacks
One of the most effective controls I have found is to snap the lower leaves off your brassicas and place them around new seedlings in a circle. The slugs and snails would rather eat what is in front of them than use the energy to travel up a plant. In the morning, look under the leaves that you have placed on the soil and remove any that are present.
I also recommend feeding your slugs and snails away from the bed with old brassica leaves in a pile. I tend to put my pile at least three metres away from my bed and this is very effective.
The beer trap
Beer traps are a great method. Place shallow lids on your soil, push them down slightly so they are at soil level and fill with cheap beer. No need to waste the good stuff! Snails and slugs flock to the beer and drown while drinking. Make sure you clear them out every couple of days.
Regularly check all the dark, damp places around your growing bed – especially under lids, wood, mulch and the corners of your raised beds. Remove slugs and snails while they sleep the day away.
With so many effective organic methods available, I urge you to avoid snail bait, which contains metaldehyde. This breaks down into our waterways and is highly toxic to animals.
Check your garden tonight for these little creatures, try some of my suggested methods and let me know how you get on.
