Snail Control
Snails are an incredibly amazing naturally occurring pest; the average snail can lay up to 300 eggs per day during the laying season, and these eggs can lie in the ground for eleven years or more until conditions are right for them to hatch. It’s easy to see how a snail infestation can occur overnight, and a bad infestation can prove very detrimental to your garden.
Snails are a pest which truly demonstrate the ineffectiveness of a toxic chemical approach to pest control. While they will perish individually, over use of toxic chemicals will actually create the ideal habitat for snails and their eggs as it kills the soil and dries it out. The only way to deal with snails is through time and patience, and here are some ways to do it.
* Mulching. Snails do not like many materials that are used as common mulching ingredients, such as pine needles (dry!), kelp (salty!), and rock dust (very dry!). They can’t lay their eggs in these materials, and contact may make them dry out as well.
* Hand picking. A snail infestation means a lot of hard work. Plan a time when you will go out to your garden and remove those snails one by one, by hand. Remember that 300 egg figure? Well, that means you have to make sure to get every single snail you see, or you will soon be dealing with the same problem all over again. Once you pick them off, throw them into a bucket containing salt or diatomaceous earth, which will kill them almost immediately. Go out to pick snails off your plants after watering or after a good rain shower.
* Attracting and trapping. Natural snail baits and traps are a great way to get snails out of your garden; check with your local pest control company to see what they recommend.
* Coffee? It appears as though coffee may have many of the same properties found in industrially created snail and slug killing chemicals, without all the additives and the further harm these substances can cause. The caffeine in the coffee is the active ingredient, and coffee in solution can be used as a spray to kill off even the tiniest snails.
* Natural predators. Encouraging natural snail predators is another way to deal with a snail infestation, although some (such as birds) can be hard to rely on. You can use more reliable predators such as toads, beetles, snakes, and lizards to keep the snail population down in your garden.
A snail infestation can mean a lot of time invested in clearing up the problem, but don’t be tempted to take the easy, chemical way out. Chemicals react very badly with your soil, and will kill it and create the perfect environment for snail reproduction.