How To Get Rid Of Snails In The Garden? Our Guide Here

Written By James
Updated May 16, 2021 by James

How To Get Rid Of Snails In The Garden? Our Guide Here

The garden is a place of tranquility and relaxation, a place to escape the stress of the world outside.

But every garden has a problem: bugs. Weeds, bugs, slugs, snails and more they all want to eat your hard work and spoil your garden.

Why are snails a problem in your garden? They are very destructive and eat your plants. They carry a parasite that infects slugs, and if you kill them, the parasite will die as well.

Snails also known as land or garden snails are mollusks that are found in gardens and in damp locations, around the world. They feed on plants, seedlings, and fruits.

The snails are also carriers of plant diseases. The snails are mostly active in the Spring and in the Fall.

To control snails from thriving and spreading diseases, it is important to prevent them from reaching maturity.

What Are Snails?

Many gardeners are seeing the damage that is being done to their plants by snails and slugs.

You may notice that your flowers or vegetables are missing stems or leaves. It is possible that you are having a problem with slugs, snails, or both.

Slimy creatures are the garden varieties of mollusks. They are also known as garden snails.

Just like other mollusks, snails are aquatic animals. However, they don't live underwater. Instead, they live on land.

As scavengers, they are considered to be helpful and not pests to the garden. The garden snail eats decaying plant matter, dead leaves, and other garden debris. In turn, it produces useful fertilizer. 

Brown garden snails a type of snails thrive in moist environments that are safely hidden from the heat of the sun.

Most active during foggy, cloudy, or rainy days when it's damp, these snail scoundrels will feed on a wide variety of living plants and decaying plant matter – such as young tree bark, ripe or ripening fruit crops, or young tree or plant leaves. 

How To Get Rid Of Snails In The Garden Naturally?

Discover how to get rid of snails by natural snail repellents, snail traps, and snail poisons.

Natural snail repellents include placing mint leaves around your garden and planting thyme.

Creating barriers using irritating materials such as abrasive gravel, sharp eggshell fragments, diatomaceous earth, or rough wood chips will help.

Or simple snail trap that is made by creating a small hole in the ground and filling it with beer.

A trap is a good solution. Common homemade traps for snails and slugs include inverted grapefruit halves, overturned flowerpots, and boards. 

If you are thinking about using snail poison, know that it is not a good idea because it can harm other animals and is environment unfriendly.

An inverted saucer or any other vessel with lettuce leaves or other bait can also be a good trap. The pests will be attracted by the leaves or food items and get trapped inside.

Ways To Get Rid Of Snails In The Garden?

If you have a garden, you have to deal with the problem of snails. Nobody likes them, and people are always trying to find ways to get rid of them

  • There are several ways to get rid of snails in the garden. One is to use a snail traps to capture the snails in one place, then dispose of them.
  • Another is to use snail repellents to trick your snails into thinking your garden is a bad place to be. Yet another is to use snail bait to kill the snails.
  • They are slimy and gross. If you don’t have a problem with killing them, you can always resort to handpicking snails off your plants.
  • Electronic fence can be a great barrier or repellent. Electricity creates an unpleasant sensation in the gastropods' bodies, turning them away. This sensation can only be felt by the mollusks, so it is safe for other animals.
  • You can use a variety of products that are available to consumers.

Does Vinegar Kill Snails?

Vinegar is a versatile and affordable natural remedy that can be used to treat everything from heartburn to athlete’s foot.

It also has a multitude of household uses, such as removing stains from cloth, cleaning windows and even whitening teeth.

Vinegar has been used in the garden for more than one reason. Whether you are trying to get rid of snails or kill fungus, vinegar is a great way to get the job done.

Many gardeners use vinegar as a way to kill snails and slugs. The snails and slugs mistake the vinegar for rain and they crawl on the plants and drown.

Vinegar is often a natural and eco-friendly way to kill pests, because it causes dehydration.

But snails are not insects, they are mollusks, and they have gills, so they can breathe underwater.

Vinegar can help control snail populations in your garden, but since snails are hermaphroditic and lay their eggs in the soil. 

The high acidity of vinegar will harm them, but they must be submerged in it to be killed.

The best way to kill snails with vinegar is to add a few drops of dish soap to increase the surface tension of the vinegar so it will stick to the snail.

Reasons To Get Rid Of Snails In The Garden?

Garden snails are one of the most popular animals to keep in a garden. They control pests and can be great at garden waste disposal.

Unfortunately, garden snails can also damage the plant life in your garden. It depends on the type of snail you have.

Snails are a natural part of the ecosystem, and the presence of snails in your garden actually indicates there is little or no problem with your garden.

They are there because there's something for them to eat. Some people think that snails leave a slimy trail in their wake that can cause mildew to grow and ruin your plants.

The life of a garden snail can be tough. In fact, having a garden snail is like having a pet rock for many people: they don't really do anything.

But, snails do have a couple of redeeming qualities, the most important of which is that they are a free source of food for many critters, including frogs, lizards, and small mammals.

Those qualities aside, garden snails are unprotected by law, and it is legal to pick them up and move them off your property.

Snails damage plants and crops. Apart from being a turn-off, the mollusks are pests.

They eat plants, so they can really reduce crop yield and do some damage to ornamentals.

They feed mainly on leaves, which means that they can be a real threat in your leafy garden.

Are Garden Snails Dangerous?

Snails are mollusks. That means they are related to clams, oysters, and octopuses.

While most people would say that snails are harmless, it turns out that they can pose a threat to humans.

The snails can cause a disease called meningitis, which is potentially fatal. Most cases of meningitis are caused by the pneumococcus bacteria.

Although the bacteria is not actually found in the snails, it is transferred to humans when the person eats the snails. 

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James

My father, and his father before him, and his father; for the past 3 generations, my family have always been into gardening. The green fingers is a gift passed down to me and I thoroughly enjoy it! I also have worked in the manufacturing department for Bosch and DeWalt so I like to think I know a thing or two about tools and such!
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