How To Get Rid Of Snails Organically?

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Snails and slugs are troublesome living creatures that can spoil your garden plants and flower beds. They also bring within themselves a lot of parasites, bacteria, and even some kinds of dangerous viruses.

Unfortunately, they are many and reproduce very fast, so if you want to use chemicals to remove them from your properties, you are likely to meet other issues with toxic chemicals.

Learning how to get rid of snails organically will be a good solution. So read this guide and choose some suitable methods for yourself.

Snails eat leaves
Snails eat leaves

How To Get Rid Of Snails Organically

As to answer your question “How do I get rid of snails in my garden naturally?”, we will introduce to you up to 8 different measures as below:

1. Buy organic insect control products in the stores

This is one of the simplest natural remedies that you can use in multiple cases. Whether you are finding how to get rid of snails in potted plants or snails in the garden, using insect sprays will be useful to get rid of them.

There are some natural pest control products available in the supermarket for getting rid of slugs, such as organic snail control sprays. For example, you can deter slugs and snails with the Dr. Earth spray sold in a local store in your neighborhood.

Another product famous for pest control is food-grade diatomaceous earth. It features tiny edges that pierce snails when they pass by, so you can sprinkle this product on locations where slime trails often appear.

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2. Use hand-made liquid solutions

According to researchers of the University of California Division of Agricultural and Natural Resources, you can also get rid of slugs by making some hand-made solutions.

Killing snails with salt is simple. Just pour the salt on them directly, and they will die soon. However, if you rarely have this kind of spice in your home, you can kill slugs with coffee, too.

The caffeine can harm and even kill snails, so make some coffee and spray it onto your potted plant, and other common garden positions.

But do coffee grounds deter snails? Yes, coffee grounds also contain caffeine that can deter snails as well as deter slugs. However, this snail control method is not as effective as the coffee spray.

Besides, the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources also recommends applying garlic spray around your flower or vegetable garden to eliminate garden slugs.

3. Set up a trap from food

Beer, the mixture of yeast and honey, grapefruit and grape juice are the most common slug baits used in snail traps or a slug trap.

  • Use a grapefruit: Cut a grapefruit into two halves and scoop out the flesh (you can eat the flesh, of course). Next, put the empty grapefruit halves near your trees overnight. In the next morning, a lot of slugs and snails will be trapped in this snail bait.
  • Beverage traps: Using yeast and honey, grape juice, or beer traps will be taken in the same steps as follows.
    1. Seek a position in your garden that is ideal for burying a can, cup, or any other container.
    2. Next, just bury it deep enough for its rim to reach the ground-level.
    3. Pour the beverage (grape juice, beer, or yeast and honey) into the container (around 2 inches deep).
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Wait for a while, then slugs and snails will be tempted to fall into the trap, and then the liquid will gradually kill snail and slugs captured there.

4. Get rid of snails manually

If your garden does not have many snails, you can catch snails by hand. Then, you can choose to decollate snails or simply throw them far away.

Hand-picking snails is also a solution
Hand-picking snails is also a solution

Nonetheless, if the garden snail is threatening your garden projects seriously, you need to accelerate the process.

Place a wet piece of wood, an overturned bowl, or pot near locations where you find slugs and snails. Since these creatures love dark and damp hiding spots, you can gather slugs naturally in these artificial hiding spots.

5. Set up abrasive barriers

If you are just wondering, “How do I stop snails eating my plants?” but you do not want to kill snails, we also have some good tips on how to get rid of snails without killing them.

One of the control methods to reduce slug damage is setting up a slug fence. Broken egg shells, wood ash, diatomaceous earth, cedar chips, and gravel are great materials for discouraging snail. Scatter these things on the ground, and snails will not pass them.

6. Introduce natural predators

This is a good way for people who are looking for how to get rid of slugs permanently.

Natural predators that can get rid of snails include frogs, possums, toads, birds, turtles, and snakes. However, these animals may be difficult to raise.

A duck may eat slugs and snails

Luckily, some poultries, such as chickens and ducks, often eat slugs and snails. Still, beware that ducks eat snails, but they prefer eating slugs.

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Besides, you can use beneficial insects such as mantis to both control slugs and control snails as well as solve other garden pest matters.

Apart from lawn care, if you need some slug control method in your fish tank, you can raise some fishes that eat snails together with the existing fishes.

7. Use metals or molluscicides containing ferric sodium EDTA

Iron phosphate is a metal that can kill snails and slugs. You can use it in the traps that we introduced above.

Otherwise, you can apply copper tape or copper wire around edges of objects in your garden to discourage snail activity. Because snails are shocked by this metal, they will avoid it.

To get rid of snails with molluscicides, you ought to sprinkle the product around the garden at dusk so that it will maintain freshness when slugs in the garden become active at night. Once the slugs ingest the bait, they cannot last for more than three days.

Note: For more intuitive guides, you can watch this video on Youtube.

Conclusion

So we have shown you how to get rid of snails organically with 8 different methods. You can use the most effective and convenient way or combine several ones simultaneously.

However, be patient if these obnoxious snails and slugs still appear during the first few days. Everything takes time, and each method might need to be given a try.

Source: Gardening101com

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