Death to all Slugs and Snails!!!

[quasar]

So my mum had numerous plants left over from doing her 'Hanging Gardens of Babylon' routine for her 'Summer Garden' (you think I'm joking? she makes Kew Gardens look like a farm shop!).

Among the selection were 8 lovely healthy & strong Marigolds - ideal for my raised flowerbeds by the patio.

I now have 8 leafless stalks protruding from the ground like some clever modern art installation or a memorial to lost chopsticks!

So... best solution for ridding my life of these pesky blighters?

 

[Marbas]

Slugs!

Snails!

 

[januaryguy]

I know how you must feel. In the rainy season, I have to take extra precaution and check for snails and slugs to protect my precious garden. I also put salt at the outer edeg of the soil to prevent them from getting to my plants

 

[quasar]

Crushed eggshells sounds like a good option for next time - but no-one is having my beer!

 

[Marbas]

Let them live!

Try to repel them, or prevent them from getting to your plants, rather than resorting to wholesale slaughter of the cute little harmless molluscy slimers.

 

[DiaryOfAMadman]

As a child we had a pool at our house, and the rear of our property bordered with my grandparents property. My grandfather always raised this huge vegitable garden every year. The combination of the two would always attract slugs. There was a slate path that connected our house to their house and anytime I'd have to run over there during the night to pick someting up from my grandmother I'd always see slugs on the slate or crawling up the side of their garage. No doubt that aside from Werewolves that SLUGS were my biggest childhood fear. To this day I still do not like them and freak out if I step on one barefooted.

 

[Swellegant]

The Grandmother likes Ortho BugGetta for wholesale gastropod slaughter. It rots the little critters right in their shells so there are plenty of trophies of the kill. The feral gleam in her eye as she surveys the corpse-strewn field is a little frightening.

My personal preference, however, would be to not plant marigolds. Put in geraniums or pelargoniums or something... snails don't like those.

 

[timnmostud]

I have used diatomaceous earth with some good success. It is actually intended to be used in pool filters, I believe. It is some sort of very very finely crushed shells. You have to place it as a complete ring around whatever you are trying to guard. The beer traps do work, but are a mess to clean up with all the dead slugs in them! If you think they are gross alive, they are really gross bloated, dead, floating in beer and partially decomposing!

 

[Piquechampion]

Snail murderer