Snails have a bad reputation. Especially among allotment gardeners. Because they love the painstakingly tended fruit and vegetables. But how do you get rid of the mollusks?
In the ranking of the most popular animals among hobby gardeners, snails tend to be at the bottom. Many try to keep the molluscs away from their fruit and vegetable beds with all sorts of home remedies. Because that’s where the slimy crawlers like to feast. Kohlrabi, pumpkin, lettuce, strawberries, zucchini – hardly anything is safe from them. The “household remedies” that snail-plagued allotment gardeners use to help themselves are imaginative, but mostly a death sentence for slugs, slugs, field slugs and related species. The beer trap is particularly popular. Attracted by the smell of the barley juice, the snails fall into a jar that has been sunk into the ground and filled with beer and can no longer free themselves. Unfortunately, this tempting offer also catches protected species such as the Roman snail. Chemical clubs like slug pellets also kill the penetrating molluscs. However, animals that do not cause any damage in the garden are also affected here.
Even if it is sometimes difficult: try to let the snails live! There are methods to keep the hungry molluscs away from the beds without killing them. A snail fence prevents them from getting to the crisp green leaves of kohlrabi
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The trick with the kink
Basically, you only need to know one thing in order to master snails of all kinds. Snails cannot crawl overhead at 90 degrees. With a snail fence, the animals are forced to do exactly this feat. And they reliably fail if the snail fence is installed correctly. The bed edgings are made of galvanized sheet steel or plastic. The principle is the same for both variants. With these three models you keep snails away from the young vegetables in your beds.
The snail fence “Made in Switzerland” comes as a small construction kit. The set consists of a total of 24 plastic parts of different lengths, which can be flexibly put together to form a snail barrier according to the size of the bed without additional tools. The Swissino snail fence is fixed in the ground with the ground anchors integrated into the side walls. In addition, it can be expanded at will. A snail tong is included as an extra.
Instead of plastic, galvanized sheet steel was used for the innogard snail fence. Here, too, no technical expertise is required for assembly. The set consists of four side walls (each one meter long) and four corner connectors and can be put together in minutes. For larger beds and areas, individual sheets help to adjust the side lengths.
Crunchy lettuce is one of the favorite foods of the voracious mollusks. The Spanish slug, in particular, makes a targeted approach to lettuce beds. If you want to protect your heads of lettuce separately from snails, you can consider a so-called snail collar. This one has a diameter of almost 25 centimeters and is placed over the salad like a ring. The collar, which is angled downwards, is an insurmountable obstacle for most snails.
Frightening snails: This can also work
Not for everyone, but extremely effective, are two options recommended by biologists for fighting snails. The goal: the snails should die, but not suffer. This happens, for example, when using slug pellets or the beer trap already mentioned.
If possible, collect the snails in a large bucket at dusk and then pour boiling water over the animals. For the second variant you need garden shears or hedge shears. The rest is self-explanatory.
How do you properly dispose of dead snails?
There are also two options for professionally disposing of snail carcasses: compost or toilet. Advantage of compost: snails are cannibals. The living are drawn to the scent of their dead kin and gather there. By the way, it is not a good idea to collect the snails and release them alive in a nearby place. If you want to be left alone, release the army of snails at the edge of the forest a little further away.
Sources: My beautiful garden
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