"snafu steve" wrote in message ...
"Alan Holmes" wrote in message
...

"MC Emily" wrote in message
...
"HaaRoy" wrote in message
news Its surprising that the British genius for invention has failed to
come up with a really good way to keep them at bay from our favourite
plants.
Whats needed is a moluscicide to get rid of them out of ones garden,
as there is a fair few plants that you just cannot raise from small
size as they just gobble up the entire plant till it dies.
and even bigger sizes are at risk..
pellets are of limited use .
what substances do they really hate , say like salt etc.??

They really *like* beer. Get a pot without holes in it, say like a
yoghurt
carton or similar. Dig a hole near your plants and put the pot in it so
that the rim of the pot is level with the ground. Fill pot to three
quarters with beer. The slugs will go in for the beer but can't get out
and
will drown. Or you could pour a circle of sand around your favourite
plants
to stop the slugs crossing the line but this is impractical as the birds
will keep scratching it away. Hope this helps.

DO NOT put the edge of the container level with the soil, other beneficial
insects will fall in and be drowned, put it so the lip is between 1/2 and
1
inch above the soil.

The slugs and snails will climb up over the edge.

And cover it to prevent the rain diluting the beer.

Alan
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Reply to alan(at)windsor-berks(dot)freeserve(dot)co(dot)uk


What we need is for the scientists to create a GM snail which would eat only
weeds.

This would be quite a challenge it seems. I back onto a railway bank
that is full of unprotected weeds, but the snails still head for my
protected (I delude myself) plants.

Or even better, eat all the other snails and slugs.

ISTR a TV programme about an island where they once introduced large
cannabilistic snails to eat up all the small vegetarian snails. It
worked, but guess what they have a plague of now :-(

Chris