“To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Jane's Delicious Garden
P O Box 288
Auckland Park 2006
South Africa
ph: 011 482 2052
fax: 011 482 2096
alt: 082 898 6953
info
Snails and Slugs
Slugs and snails love eating fleshy, green plants – and especially young fleshy, green plants. This is why they make a beeline for our vegetable garden. But did you know there is something slugs and sails like even more than green plants? Beer! I discovered this early on in my vegetable gardening journey and since then have tried a number of different methods of using beer to trap them and here is the one that works best for me: The yoghurt container beer trap.
Making a Snail Beer Trap
Snail Razor Wire
After going through the whole mission of preparing a seedbed, planting the seeds and watching every day as the little green sprouts grow bigger and stronger, the last thing you want is to come out one morning and find all your hard work mowed down by snails or slugs during the night. Even with beer traps this sometimes happens. It is worth giving seedlings some extra protection. As much as slugs and snails love beer - they hate metal. For them, touching a strip of copper or brass is the equivalent of us touching aluminium foil to a filling!
My snail and slug warfare includes razor wire made from brass scouring wool (found in the cleaning section at the supermarket). Pull, tease and roll it between your hands until it forms a long sausage. Lay this in a circle around the entire seedbed. Make sure there are no gaps or leaves hanging over which the blighters will use as a bridge. Pin it securely on the ground using twigs. Snails and slugs won’t cross it, as it will cut their stomachs to shreds.Protect newly transplanted seedlings with a small collar of brass wool around their stems. I keep a bag of ready rolled strips in my shed. It lasts for ages and is re-useable.
Organic Snail Bait
And if you still aren't winning your war, Talborne Products make an excellent organic snail bait: Biogrow Ferramol. It contains no poisons. Its active ingredient is iron phosphate which naturally occurs in the soil. After eating the pellets, snails and slugs lose their appetite and die.
Copyright Jane's Delicious Garden All rights reserved.
Jane's Delicious Garden
P O Box 288
Auckland Park 2006
South Africa
ph: 011 482 2052
fax: 011 482 2096
alt: 082 898 6953
info