On Sun, 03 Oct 2004 23:35:07 -0000, WPB wrote:

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?

Snails IN the soil? You mean buried in the dirt? I'm no expert on the
lifestyle of snails, but they're usually creeping around on the
surface. There are different sorts of grubs that may be found in the
soil, but I've never heard of buried snails.

And no. *Don't* sprinkle salt around. You'll just poison the ground.
Salt is sprinkled directly on snails and slugs to catastrophically
dehydrate them. Beer is used in a shallow container to trap and drown
snails and slugs. Neither is a deterrent in or on the ground.

Snails won't bother tulip bulbs. If they are still there when the
tulips are growing, they may eat some foliage.

If you've removed the weeds the snails were living amongst, they
probably won't be living there next year. Just gather up all the ones
you see and squish 'em now.