Slugs & Snails
 
Slugs look like snails that have misplaced their shells. Snails look like slugs in mobile homes. They both grow between ½ to 3 inches long (1.3 to 7.6 cm) with soft, slimy bodies of gray, black, or brown. Slugs and snails will chew everything, such as shoots, buds, leaves, flowers, and ripe fruit to pieces. They will crawl up vertical surfaces to get into hanging pots. Nothing is safe from them if it touches the ground. Their 'eyes' are at the tips of their antennae, with which they also smell. They're really cute, but they'll munch on your plants if you let them. You can make a slug barrier around your garden's outer edge.
- Buy a length of thin 1-inch-wide (2.5 cm) copper metal from a craft or hardware store.
- Ask an adult to help you nail or staple it to the top edge of as many 6-inch-wide (15 cm) wooden boards as it takes to surround your garden.
- Push the boards 2 inches deep (5 cm) into the soil all the way around the garden's perimeter, leaving no gaps or spaces between the boards.
- Make sure that no leaves, weeds, or plants touch or lay over the barrier, or the slugs will use it like a ramp to get back into your garden.
- Powdered ginger is an effective, natural snail and slug repellent.
- It isn't toxic to people, pets, or the environment, and you can buy it cheaply at a bulk food store.
- Sprinkle it on the ground around the plants you want to protect.
- You will have to reapply it after each rainfall or when the ground is dry after you water your plants.
Toads Love Slugs
Toads love to eat slugs, so encourage them to reside in your garden.
- Fill a 0.8-inch-deep (2 cm) shallow container or deep plate with water and put it in a shady spot on the ground in your garden.
- Toads will spend hours soaking in water because this is how they absorb water.
- It is especially important to remember to refill the water during hot, dry summer days.
Fascinating Facts!
- Slugs are gastropods, which means they're in the same family as snails.
- Slugs can eat up to 40 times their body weight in a single day.
- Slugs move by secreting a slimy mucus that helps them glide along surfaces.
- The largest slug on record was over 11.8 inches (30 cm) long.
- Slugs have been around for over 300 million years.
- Some species of slugs are considered pests in gardens because they eat plants.
- Slug slime has been used for centuries in medicine and cosmetics and is being studied for its potential use in biomedical engineering.
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