How to keep slugs and snails away

[WolfSpirit]

Not sure if this is the right forum, but...

I have a few pumpkin plants in the garden, and I noticed slugs and snails just love the leaves. My mum gave me something against snails, it is some sort of dark granules I had to sprinkle around the plants. I thought it would just keep them away, but to my horror (I know, I am a big wally) they had died and sort of "melted". This is not really what I wanted, they are quite pretty and in the back of the garden is a bit of wild territory where they are welcome to nibble - I just want them not to eat my pumpkin plants all !
Does anyone know of a friendlier way to keep slugs and snails at a distance ?

 

[zorya]

if you don't want to kill them, try strips of copper around your plants. the copper gives off a slight electric charge when they try to cross.

if you do decide to kill them, beer in a very shallow container does the trick. being beer, it might be painless.

 

[jema]

I have artemisia growing in my herbplot and the snails hate it.
They won't even go near it so I have a rather large plant of it in the middle of the plot and somehow that is enough.
But then I am fortunate enough to live in the north of Sweden where snails are not that much of a problem, we only have those really tiny ones.

 

[WolfSpirit]

Well I was just about to throw away the wires of my old stereo system. They have a copper core, so I stripped the plastic off and now I have a copper "fence" around my plants. Can't wait to see if it works !
I looked into artemisia - seems well worth getting anyway. I see there is one with lemon smell that keeps insects away. People used it against musquitos and clever birds use it to keep their nests free of lice and fleas ! Jema, do you know what type of artemisia you have ?

Last year I had a regular visit from hedgehogs who munched away some of the snails. This year I haven't seen the hedgehogs, I assume last year they went way out of their territory for water and food because it was such a dry summer.

 

[hyatt]

I use the beer method and it works well...esp. of you have someone who likes beer in your house and leaves alittle in a bottle often

 

[lunalafey]

A barrier of salt- like a fence around the perameter of your garden will also help.

 

[Tarotphelia]

You might investigate garlic or tobacco . Although the tobacco might be lethal . In any case, do not lend them money.

 

[WolfSpirit]

I tried fencing the plants off with copper and it seems to be working. On the first morning there was only one, now there are none at all although it is wet day today when slugs and snails are most active.
Should it not be sufficient, then I have plenty of other ideas here. I could get them beer and tobacco. What Kind of tobacco do you want, lady ? Not sure, it is not for me it is for my snails

Thanks for the input everyone.

 

[zorya]

glad it's working wolf spirit.

if you've planted any tomato plants, you may not want to try tobacco, as the plants are suseptible to tobacco mosaic virus.

also be careful using salt, it quickly leaches into the soil and can also damage more sensitive plants.

 

[jema]

The kind I have is the Artemisia absinthium. It is rather beautiful with its silvery leaves and it has a spicy pleasant scent.

A trick I learnt just this week is the cut an orange in half and place outside in the evening and then in the morning you can just pick it up and burn it or kill all the snails collected inside.
Don't just throw it away though, the snails have to be killed or they will just come back.

The best way to get rid of them though is to get a duck
Ducks love snails.
(now I almost wish we had more snails so I could convince my family we need a duck)