There's a lot of different ways people use to get rid of snails and slugs from their garden, some are more effective than others, some don't work at all, some can cause as much harm to your garden as it does the snails, some aren't good if you have pets, some are expensive, and some will become no good as soon as you water the garden or it rains.
One thing that can withstand watering, the weather, will do no harm to your garden or pets, and works a treat is a simple trap made from small old black plastic flower pots, or margarine or similar containers and some black paint.
Snails and slugs like it dark, they also like humidity but with some ventilation. An upturned black plastic container provides exactly that environment.
Slugs and snails usually come out at night to feed, then hide away from the sunlight in dark humid but well ventilated spots in the garden. First of all, hunt through the garden and see if there's any rocks, logs, branches, large pieces of bark, or anything else that might be creating that dark humid environment for the snails and slugs to hide in during the day. If you find any, remove them and if you can, remove their hiding hole or move it to a different part of the yard where something is growing that snails and slugs aren't likely to eat.
Now it's time to recreate that environment in a way that you control and can clean out each afternoon.
Take your little old garden pots or margarine containers or whatever your using, and turn it upside down. Now imagine it as a snail house. It needs a doorway. So at the ground level, cut a little doorway for the snails and slugs to enter through. It also needs ventilation. An old flowerpot will have a couple of drainage holes in it, you'll have to make some small ventilation holes in the roof of the snail house if you're using a margarine container or the like. If your containers aren't black, paint them black at least on the inside. You can get creative and do something more interesting with the outside if you want to. That's it. Now make a few of these and put them through your garden in the areas where your plants are being eaten.
Each day, at the hottest part of the day or soon after, go and turn all those pots up and physically remove the slugs and snails, then put the pots back. Don't go cleaning the slug and snail slime off the pots, as that will help other slugs and snails find their way to the pots as they search for mates. Over the course of a week, you should find the amount of snails and slugs your little pots collect will increase a bit each day, and after about 2 weeks, you'll start finding that their numbers will decrease, and eventually you'll find yourself only picking out tiny babies.
If you need some added attraction for them, when you empty the pot, pour a little bit of stale beer in there, just enough to wet the sides. The smell will attract more snails and slugs into the pot, and the beer smell will be protected from being washed away when you water the garden.
Picture source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Samsoncj_snail_07.jpg
One thing that can withstand watering, the weather, will do no harm to your garden or pets, and works a treat is a simple trap made from small old black plastic flower pots, or margarine or similar containers and some black paint.
Snails and slugs like it dark, they also like humidity but with some ventilation. An upturned black plastic container provides exactly that environment.
Slugs and snails usually come out at night to feed, then hide away from the sunlight in dark humid but well ventilated spots in the garden. First of all, hunt through the garden and see if there's any rocks, logs, branches, large pieces of bark, or anything else that might be creating that dark humid environment for the snails and slugs to hide in during the day. If you find any, remove them and if you can, remove their hiding hole or move it to a different part of the yard where something is growing that snails and slugs aren't likely to eat.
Now it's time to recreate that environment in a way that you control and can clean out each afternoon.
Take your little old garden pots or margarine containers or whatever your using, and turn it upside down. Now imagine it as a snail house. It needs a doorway. So at the ground level, cut a little doorway for the snails and slugs to enter through. It also needs ventilation. An old flowerpot will have a couple of drainage holes in it, you'll have to make some small ventilation holes in the roof of the snail house if you're using a margarine container or the like. If your containers aren't black, paint them black at least on the inside. You can get creative and do something more interesting with the outside if you want to. That's it. Now make a few of these and put them through your garden in the areas where your plants are being eaten.
Each day, at the hottest part of the day or soon after, go and turn all those pots up and physically remove the slugs and snails, then put the pots back. Don't go cleaning the slug and snail slime off the pots, as that will help other slugs and snails find their way to the pots as they search for mates. Over the course of a week, you should find the amount of snails and slugs your little pots collect will increase a bit each day, and after about 2 weeks, you'll start finding that their numbers will decrease, and eventually you'll find yourself only picking out tiny babies.
If you need some added attraction for them, when you empty the pot, pour a little bit of stale beer in there, just enough to wet the sides. The smell will attract more snails and slugs into the pot, and the beer smell will be protected from being washed away when you water the garden.
Picture source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Samsoncj_snail_07.jpg
