Snails galore

[daylen]

The main pest in our garden is the slug. We usually get a good deal of these with the odd snail for good measure. This year though we have been invaded by snails. Our garden is pretty small with probably around 20m2 of raised beds plus pots, but this year I'm collecting around 20-30 fully grown garden snails every couple of days from our peas and courgettes.

Is anyone else experiencing a snail invasion (I'm in Sheffield) and if not any ideas on the possible cause? We did get some compost from a different supplier - could this be the source?

[jansman]

The main pest in our garden is the slug. We usually get a good deal of these with the odd snail for good measure. This year though we have been invaded by snails. Our garden is pretty small with probably around 20m2 of raised beds plus pots, but this year I'm collecting around 20-30 fully grown garden snails every couple of days from our peas and courgettes.

Is anyone else experiencing a snail invasion (I'm in Sheffield) and if not any ideas on the possible cause? We did get some compost from a different supplier - could this be the source?

I am more snails than slugs this year. They do come in cycles,as I have found over my 30 + years of vegetable gardening. Why ?,I don’t know,but they work like that it seems.

[Vitamin c]

Eat them ,fried in garlic butter had them in belgum years ago ,very high in protein.

[Peter]

If you need to go slug hunting, wait until quite dark, 11.00 pm or later, vinyl gloves, torch, plastic bag with some salt, do it every night. After a week you’ll notice the difference .

[daylen]

Eat them ,fried in garlic butter had them in belgum years ago ,very high in protein.

I've thought about eating them but I don't think they're worth the effort and I'm certainly not going to eat them every day! They're not tasty enough to me.

[jansman]

Eating them is not in my style or culture. I’ll shoot a pigeon landing in my veg garden!

[Medusa]

Touch wood, we have had few of either this year. We do seem to have quite a few frogs and toads around though so they will no doubt be helping with the slug issue. Lots of birdlife here too, although we haven't seen the Thrush who usually eats all of the snails.

[Vitamin c]

I had frogs legs years ago.


I luckily got some ointment from the doc for it.

[grenfell]

I haven't sufferedanymore than other years with slugs and snails to be honest.
Incidently with regards to snails or rather the empty shells you find in the garden I was reading that kids used them to play a form of conkers in the middle ages . Conker trees or horse chestnut to give them a proper name wasn't introduced till the 16th century. Of course I had to try it out and a few friends and I set it up in the full expectation of standing ankle deep in broken shells within a few swings but to our amazement they perform really well. Simply poke a small hole for the string and have a play. We reckoned that being so light and probably not very aerodynamic as well means that you can't really get much effort behind the swing and it takes many blows to win a game. We strung up a number and took them on re-enactments but it was surprising just how few kids knew what conkers were...

[Mad Scientist]

Snails everywhere. My poor rhubarb has been decimated.