I had just cleaned the deck, the BBQ and the hot tub cover the day before when my daughter came running in the house to tell me…

…”SLUGS are attacking EVERYTHING! I noticed that she was also rubbing her little fingers together and then I knew she had made the mistake of touching them. If you are familiar with the little slimy critters, once you get there slim on your hands or fingers, it’s nearly impossible to get off!

If that’s not bad enough, they leave a slimy trail everywhere they’ve been.

So I told her it’s time for us to go on the slug and snail patrol but first we sat down and did some research. We wanted to find some helpful information that we could use and share with our readers for ways to “Get Rid Of Slugs And Snails – without the use of chemicals.

Here’s what we found and we hope it is useful information for you as it was for us!

How to Get Rid of Slugs and Snails With Yeast

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Most of the commercially available, poisonous pellets, liquid or granules aimed at pesky snails and slugs may also prove toxic to pets, children and wildlife. Since slugs and snails love yeast, this article will show you a great, child and pet friendly means for dealing with them in your garden.

Steps

1. Put a lump of brewer's yeast or sprinkle powdered yeast into a jar of warm water and sugar. The jar must be deep enough to keep the slugs and snails from crawling out. You can also buy containers (traps) designed specifically for this purpose at garden supply stores. A suggested mixture is two cups of warm water, a packet of dry yeast, and one teaspoonful each of salt and sugar--the salt will help ensure that the slugs and snails die before they have a chance to escape. If you're going to dump the slugs and/or mixture in your garden or compost pile, skip the salt; it'll make your soil too salty.
2. Dig a hole large enough for the jar to sit in up to its mouth. This is best done in the vegetable patch or other garden space where the slugs and snails are patrolling.
3. Repeat every few feet. Put these traps throughout your garden at intervals of six to eight feet, since the yeast won't draw them in from any further than that.
4. Check daily and remove slugs and snails that have been attracted to the jar and dispose of them. They will have crawled into the jar and drowned. You can leave them in the garden to decompose and contribute to the organic matter of the soil, or put them in a compost pile (either way, crushing them will hasten the process, if you are not squeamish about doing so).
5. Renew the mixture regularly. It will be impacted by rain and evaporation, so top it up as needed.

Video

You can watch the original video at WikiHows or watch the one below that we located for you.

Tips

• This can also be done with beer instead of a yeast mixture.

Things You'll Need

• Brewer's yeast or powdered yeast
• Sugar
• Warm water
• Jar
• Digging implement

Related wikiHows

• How to Get Rid of Garden Slugs
• How to Care for Slugs
• How to Care for Giant African Land Snails
• How to Find a Snail

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Get Rid of Slugs and Snails With Yeast. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Here's a video:

How-to-get-rid-of-slugs-and-snails

“If you’ll learn and practice a consistent, organic garden weed control program you can enjoy a virtually weed free garden!”

Weeding is NOT one of my favorite gardening chores, but it is a neccesity. In this essay learn some tips and tricks to make this chore a little easier on you, your time and your back.

First and foremost…before you consider using herbicides, try these natural approaches to garden weed control.

Weeding a garden…no matter how you approach it does require persistence on your part, but if you consistently nip those weeds as soon as they crop up, over time you’ll find that fewer and fewer of these peskyinvaders will be found. 

The first tip of  organic weed control, refrain from ever tossing pulled weeds into your compost pile.  Bag up those weeds up and get rid of them! Never ever mix them or use them as mulch.

The next tip… as soon as spring is coming on strong, take advantage of mild cool mornings and go out in the garden and start plucking the weeds from every area of the garden.

Create a plan of action and tackle one area at a time. Use one bucket to sit on and another bucket with a handle to carry to the trash. 

Your garden weed control program must be repeated at least once a week in most gardens.

The faster you get them out, the quicker you’ll reach the virtually weed free goal. Some weeds put out long tap roots quickly and you know what happens then don’t you?  Well, the root breaks off and will comes back stronger than ever!

If you get a jump on weeding early then just a few weeks after the arrival of hot summer days, you’ll notice a definite decrease in the number of weeds.

You’ll notice this decrease of weeds and areas that were the worst will take less time to weed. Your garden weed control program is starting topay off– your starting to save time for other gardening projects!

Mulching as a weed preventer.  In these water conscious times, more gardeners are seeing the value of mulching. Yes, a layer of mulch helps the soil to retain water, but it also doubles as a weed interupter. If you’ll spread mulch about 2-3 inches thick, it tends to block out the needed sunlight weeds need and it helps suffocate any would be weed.  You may still see one pop up, but it will be much easier to pull – root and all!

Consider installing an automatic watering system.  Most gardeners prefer using drip feeders or flat strips of finely perforated hosing.  This allows you to water right at the base of the plants you want to grow and will help starve and depleat the areas of soil where weeds tend to take over.  

Also,  slow, deep watering makes your plants more vigorous and helps save water.

Note:  In a recent article we talked about Native plants used to conserve water…you may want to check it out here.

When to water?  The best time to water is early in the morning. Watering in the middle of the day can shock your plants, flowers and vegetables, while wasting water that evaporates quickly. Watering too late in the day is an invitation to molds.

Raised beds usually mean that you’ll naturally enter into the organic garden weed control objective.

Because garden soil always contains weed seeds, you always deal with more potential for weeds.  In raised beds you probably will use nursery soil and composted amendments plus fertilizers to fill them.  This will mean that you’ll be starting from a baseline soil that will produce a lot less weeds.

Raised beds are also easier to care for, as you can sit comfortably on the edge of the bed, instead of crouching for hours.

In conclusion, keep in mind that  the real secret to the whole garden weed control strategy is that you must remain unrelenting in your weekly weeding and remember to apply fresh mulch as soon as the weather warms.

If you follow these tips, by mid-summer, you will have control over the weeds and a virtually weed free garden will leave you with more time to enjoy other home and garden activities.

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