Maybe I've been lucky, but I've never seen tulip bulbs damaged by snails.
Foliage - who knows? But, that dies down by end of spring anyway, and it's
pretty rugged while it's growing.

Other tips for a new gardener: If the madness begins to take over your
entire life (which it will when seed catalogs arrive in January), remember
that you can always shuffle garden expenses into other parts of the
household budget. For instance, since gardening is good exercise and
relaxing, some of the expenses can go under "Health care". If you plant
shrubs to block the winter wind, the expense goes under "Utilities". If you
plant things with thorns to block windows which might attract burglars, that
goes under "Home Security or Repair". Any edible plants obviously fall into
the food budget. If you do this right, you'll find you're spending next to
nothing on gardening.

Also: Do yourself a favor right now and buy a book called "The Essential
Earthman", by Henry Mitchell. It'll help a lot when things don't go right,
like a frost in late May.


"WPB" wrote in message
...
Hello, all: First of all, I'm a VERY amateur gardner having bought my
first
house about six weeks ago. Most of my gardening experience has been
marigolds in an apartment balcony flower box. So I'm very grateful for
any
suggestions.

I have a plot about 6 feet by 4 feet at the front of my house. Covered
with some sort of weeds that I dug up. I want to plant a nice tulip
selection I bought. But there are snails in the soil. Can I just plant
the bulbs tomorrow and ignore the snails? Sprinkle salt a la Gary
Larsen's
Far Side? Or beer?

I'm ready to plant, but am a bit nervous about the snails. I bow to
everyone's expertise in these matters.

Thanks so much!

David in Toronto