I have never had a problem, their are not too many deer roaming the streets of London. Any advice on preventing the snails from consuming all our vegetables would be welcome. They are everywhere this year.
We will give that a try, walking across the lawn after dark is like walking through popcorn at the moment. They have destroyed all our marrows and are now feasting on the tomato plants.
We will give that a go, we have plenty or old copper pipes lying around and their is no shortage of egg shells. Snails are everywhere here in our part of the UK over recent years. Their are grass verges where we live and walking home at night is like walking over popcorn. The problem is that whatever we use to deter them will need to be a permanent feature in our gardens.
@wilsjane I don't know if you have tried this, but I managed to clear my garden courtyard in Amsterda of the snails with an easy cheap method. Stale beer in a bowl on the ground outside. They all climb in and drown having a great time. I harvested hundreds over about a week or so, and then just a few for a while. End of summer they were all gone and my plants were thriving again. The worst part was clearing the bowls of yuck every morning.
This may be late. Buy I have mixed warm water and table salt together and sprayed to get rid of the slugs. If you plant in containers, spray outside. The snails will not climb up.
That's an eco-friendly method indeed! Container gardening is the best, for me, in small spaces. Easier to keep pests under control also. If one gets bugs, you can remove it easily from the others.
I have always planted in containers. My corn,and peas I grow in the ground. I found out many years ago that my food did better in containers. Also less work in getting weeds out.
I worked with a gardening author designing his books We experimented a lot with small hydro setups, aquaponics, and anything indoors. Like greenhouses. Went to a lot of trade shows, took a lot of pictures and drew a lot of diagrams...fun stuff! One title was 'Gardening Indoors' by George Van Patten.
Like some already suggested......broken sea or egg shells around the plants you want to protect or digg in(ground level) a glass with a little bit of beer, atleast they die a drunk death,lol. If you have a bigger garden a compost heap, will also help.......snails are lazy and still usefull. Dont use poison,other insects/birds/hedgehogs/ect. Mzzls
The crushed seashells is a good idea. Elsewhere known as diatomateous earth, you can find it in lawn/garden stores. This should stop a lot of creeping pests like the slugs and snails. Some of my neighbors put a ring of salt around their plants, but if you have a lot of mulch around your plants I'm not sure how well any of that will work. I got praying mantis cucoons and tied them around my yard and garden as well as my fruit trees. Come spring when everything blossoms out, those critters will be everywhere eating every pest in the area, and no chemical poisons to worry about. They can be found along fences and railbeds near the ground.
