Fighting snails in the country

Especially for each reader of DachaDecor.ru we have done a serious job and found the 10 best ways to help quickly get rid of pests in the country.

Children against snails

Quite an interesting and unusual way, but children can collect almost all the snails in the country, give them only such an opportunity. They will carefully search every bed and even single plants, collecting each new specimen in a jar or bucket. Naturally, it is better not to tell your kids that they are a serious strategic weapon against the dacha pest, or not to destroy the pests with them, because it can injure the child’s psyche. True, this can be avoided altogether, and after harvesting, just take them to the nearest forest belt. These are not cats that find their way home, and therefore, after the manual collection and removal of the snail, they will no longer return to their summer cottage!

Animals vs. Shellfish

Here everything is a little different, because some animals will look for snails at the site not only for fun, but also for their own food. As in the case of slugs, the fight with which we described on the site not so long ago, hedgehogs and frogs, which eat pests of green beds, can be used against mollusks.

You can use as a tool and poultry, or rather, ducks, which are very voracious. They easily swallow every snail that they encounter on the way, and quickly clear the dacha from them. But you should not forget that ducks are not very smart birds, and therefore they will not bypass the cultivated plants. Ducks, along with our help, can also bring harm, for example, trample seedlings or pull them out for the sake of their own food. In addition, they will definitely leave behind a serious mark in the form of a litter. Find out what you need to get a good crop of cucumbers.

We also recommend to read: How to get rid of moles at the cottage; Fight against slugs in the garden; Fight against hop in the garden. Useful insects in the garden (10 photos)

Therefore, to let out ducks in a palisade or a kitchen garden is only if you do not grow anything special there.

Destruction of snails with salt

According to the observations of experienced gardeners, it is known that these mollusks do not like salt, and not only do they not love, they still cannot survive the salt effect. This is what should be used.

In the places where snails gather, where you have seen their maximum accumulation, the pests will go to feed in the evening or at night, which means that it is there that everything must be sprinkled abundantly with salt.

If it is a pile of leaves in the garden, overheating weeds in the corner of the summer cottage or even a compost heap, this method can be used. If you notice a cluster of snails in the garden, where cultivated plants grow, it is undesirable to use salt, because it can destroy plants and damage the soil.

Fighting snails on strawberries

Cute-looking mollusks often spoil our strawberry harvest, and since they feed at night, and during the day they try to wait out the danger in shelters, they must be fought with more thoughtful means. It may even be plants that will become the permanent protection of strawberries. Even in early spring, when you start spring care for the plot, plant mustard, rosemary, thyme, or even ordinary parsley around the bed with strawberries. You can learn what is needed for a "healthy" garden.

This will create a certain barrier through which the snails will not go!

Even if you notice uninvited guests on a strawberry, you can quickly pick them up and carry them away from the dacha, it’s 100% random bedoukou.

We use sawdust, ash, sand and granules

You can fight snails in even simpler ways, the same as with slugs. These pests are very similar to each other, and therefore measures of exposure to them may be identical.

Crawling on a bed, plant or any object, the snail secretes mucus, with the help of which a simpler movement is created. If you dry out the pest’s body or minimize the secreted mucus as much as possible, this movement will become impossible, and the clam simply will not go further, well, or will not be able to move at all.

Create such barriers can be dry materials. These can be special purchased granules, which can be found in specialized stores or on the market, well, or available materials - sand, wood ash, small sawdust. You need to make strips, necessarily closed around the perimeter of the beds, just 10-15 cm wide, choosing a convenient material. Crossing the "border", the snail will not crawl half of the "obstacle course", which means it will not reach your greenery either.

Sharp materials in the fight against snails

Snails are afraid to overdry their bodies, but it is very scary to injure them for pests. Therefore, having felt the barrier of sharp materials in front of them, the pests stop and go in another direction, even if there is a lot of tasty and juicy food ahead.

As a similar obstacle, you can use nuts or eggshells, which are smashed to create sharp cuts and chips, as well as broken gravel. It would be possible to use glass as well, but it is very difficult to remove it from the garden and not get hurt, and therefore we do not recommend this method.

Another material that you can try to create such a barrier is the old PVC panels for interior decoration. In the sun, they harden and burst, creating sharp chipping, dangerous for mollusks. You can crumble plastic smaller, and create a border with it.

Funnels in the fight with snails

On sale for a long time there are special plastic funnels that protect young plants from eating snails. These are small plastic products made of thin material, which is a protection placed in the soil. When the funnel is installed, the pest simply does not have the ability to crawl, as this is prevented by a sharp angle. Under the funnel, the snail also does not pass, because it digs a few centimeters into the soil.

Scaring snails with mustard

They say that mollusks do not tolerate mustard and do not even crawl next to this plant. Gardeners played a role in this. They decided to try an even more radical way to scare off snails, rather than plant mustard around the beds. The recipe is very simple - 40-50 g of dry mustard is insisted in 250-300 ml of water, and in an hour to spray those plants in the garden, which are most often attacked by snails.

The aroma of mustard will scare off the snails, which will start to go to other beds, which means that you should immediately take care of their protection. Mustard can also be used in terms of prophylaxis, so that pests do not approach young plants at all.

How to use coffee against snails

As for coffee, it is worth talking very seriously, as it is not just a way that can destroy mollusks, but also a means of destroying beneficial insects, cultivated plants. If you do not want to lose everything in the garden, then it is worth working with coffee very carefully.

No, we cannot say that coffee grounds or caffeine solution are so dangerous, but they have a certain effect on young shoots and leaves, as well as the vital activity of insects useful in the garden. Therefore, if you are already desperate in the fight with snails, then you can easily try to apply coffee, but if not, find another way.

So how do you use coffee? You can take the thick of the brewed coffee, of course, used, and create with it a barrier around those plants that you are most worried about. The whole difficulty is that the coffee grounds are effective for only a few days, and drinking so much coffee to constantly update the “fences” around the plants is harmful. Then you can apply a solution of caffeine, made from tablets or instant coffee. Here it is necessary to seriously reduce the concentration in order not to harm the plants and insects, to about 0.1%. Next, take this solution and spray it. The very next day, the snails will not go to eat the treated plants.

You can talk for a long time about how to destroy, drive out, kill or scare away snails, so that they no longer spoil our garden and, naturally, the nervous system. But we decided to give you a complex measure of influence, which, according to our personal survey, took the first place among summer residents. Everything is very simple here, you just need a little time and the desire to cope with pests in the garden!

The trap for snails do it yourself (video)

Summer Country Tips

If you follow these instructions, you can pretty well save the beds from the "raids" of snails, and therefore recommend that you add this page to your bookmarks and advise your friends and acquaintances as needed:

• Even when planting plants, from spring, place pieces of plywood or boards in the corners of the beds, which will create a shelter for snails. Help the clams find their place under them, for example, by placing stops under the plywood, so that a certain emptiness is created below. Then, after sprouting, check your traps every week and get snails from under them, which will sit all day in place, and only in the evening crawl out for food. Slugs, which are also garden pests, will also be collected here;
• At about the same time when you plant the plants in the spring, take care of the maximum protection of the garden. Planted around protective plants that will not allow pests to green shoots. So you will save a significant part of the crop from destruction;
• The usual care of garden beds and flower beds already gives you the opportunity to effectively control pests. Think of how good wood ash is for the soil, and just sprinkle it on it. Naturally, not constantly, but periodically, thereby creating difficulties for the movement of pests and enriching the soil with useful substances;
• About once a month, carry out preventive spraying of plants with complex preparations that affect several types of pests at once.

Just a few points, and the standard biological protection from snails works. If this does not help, we advise you to resort to the use of special chemicals that will help to bring order to the site.

Fighting mollusks at your own summer cottage is not as difficult as at first glance. This is not a spider mite, which is difficult to remove from the greenhouse, and not even the Colorado potato beetle, which is full in potatoes every year. Snails are a serious eater of greenery, but it can be destroyed, especially if you are already prepared for this confrontation.