Daniel Glazer wrote:

my buddy (!) gave me some orchids and one had a snail in it and now i see
snail trails in my tomatoe plants. my dad used to put moth balls around the
pool to keep the slugs out of the pool, so i put some moth balls in my
tomatoe (container outdoors in an urban fire escape garden) plants. i
don't exactly see them clawing their way at a breakneck pace out of the
pots, but i guess they move kinda slow.

any wards, er words, of wisdom regarding this practice? bettter ways to off
the slugs? are they a true threat, or not so malignant a threat?




Yes, snails are a potential problem. Not sure about the effectiveness of
moth balls.

If you think there are only a few, you can go out just after dark and
you'll find them in an around the plant. Just pick them off and throw
them far far away (into the yard of the neighbour you can't stand
perhaps...works for me

You can deter them all season with a bit of mulch at the bottom of the
plant, placed at least a foot in diameter from the base of the plants
(or a foot out from any leaves that touch the ground). The mulch also
prevents soil getting splashed onto the leaves, which often transfers
soil borne diseases. You need to check the plant (as above) after you
put in the mulch to ensure you didn't trap any snails inside the
quarantine zone.

Make sure you use mulch and not chips or nuggets. The mulch tears up the
soft underbellies of slugs and snails and they won't cross it. There are
other solutions like traps, copper and DE, but mulch is the cheapest and
least labour intensive of all of them.

..

Zone 5a in Canada's Far East.