How to Get Rid of SLUGS & SNAILS

There is so much misinformation out there about killing and deterring slugs and snails. In this video, I'm going to set the record straight. What's true and what's not. Hey, I'm Brian with Next Level Gardening. If you're looking to join an online garden community that offers tips, tricks, and support to help you take your garden to the next level, you're in the right place. Get started now by clicking subscribe and hit the bell so you never miss anything. Now, let's get growing. In preparation for this video, I spent more time than I want to admit watching videos on a YouTube channel called Slug Help. Now, I want his channel to get all the views, so I'm not going to show any clips because he did the work. He deserves to get the views, but I will link his channel down below in the video description. They are really interesting and surprisingly binge-worthy, at least to me. And they actually helped confirm some of the things that I already thought. Before we lived in this house, we actually lived pretty close to the beach and there was a lot of moisture and a lot of slugs and snails. Now, after we moved to this house and we've been here seven years, I haven't seen any. Not one slug or snail. And the reason is we have rats. Apparently, rats keep the snail population in check. So, here we go. 25 ways to attract rats to your garden. Number one, just kidding. So, if you've tried anything that I'm about to talk about and you've had success with it or not, let me know. And if you have a surefire way to get rid of snails and slugs that I don't mention, please leave that down in the comments as well. All right. So, we're going to start out with the myths. And the first myth is coffee grounds. Now, there's a couple of ways that it's said that coffee grounds will help keep snails away or kill them. Number one, they can't eat caffeine. And so, when they eat the coffee grounds, they die. The second is the texture of the coffee grounds. They don't like the texture. And therefore, if you make a barrier, they won't cross it. So, I tried this years ago and failed miserably. And Slug Helps video helped me to realize it wasn't my fault. Coffee grounds don't work. They just crawled right over it. Do snails crawl? Slither? Slide? I feel like there needs to be a sound effect rather than a word to describe how a snail moves. Yeah, that's it. All right. So, how many of you have heard of eggshells? Sprinkle some crushed eggshells around a plant and the snails and slugs will not cross that barrier. I actually tried this one years ago as well. Didn't work. And it didn't work for Slug Help either. But in watching these videos, I actually went down a YouTube rabbit hole and I ended up watching a video of a snail or a slug, I can't remember, crawling across the edge of a razor blade, the sharp edge. So, if they can do that, coffee grounds, eggshells, and whatever other type of thing you want to sprinkle in your garden, I don't think it's going to work. Okay, so that's the two biggest myths out there. So, if you have more, leave them down below in the comments. Now, I want to go over a couple that lie somewhere between myth and fact. They kind of work. So, the first one is diatomaceous earth. Now, I've talked about that on several other videos on how to get rid of or kill other creepy crawlies. And if you look at diatomaceous earth under a microscope, it contains really sharp, like razor sharp particles. But with the snails and slugs slime, they just glide right over it. Now, the diatomaceous earth does have silica in it. And silica works its way between the snail's body and the shell and creates a space in there and kind of dehydrates the snail. Now, nine times out of ten, it's not going to kill the snail. It might make it uncomfortable. So, this one lies somewhere there in the middle but probably more on the side of it doesn't work. The next one is beer traps. You take a bowl, you fill it halfway with beer, you bury it at ground level and the snails are attracted to the beer. They're actually attracted to the yeast in the beer, not the alcohol. But they fall in and get drunk or drowned in the beer and that takes care of them. Well, it does work for some really kind of clumsy snails and slugs that actually fall in. But snails and slugs can crawl up and down the side of a bowl pretty easily. So, if they accidentally fall in, then they might drown but they're pretty much going to make it out of that bowl. So, there are better options. Another one that lies halfway in the middle between myth and fact is wood ash. Now, this one, I think it lies more closer to the absolute truth but it doesn't work for every single one. And if you go and watch Slug Help's video, you'll see. You can see the snails and slugs kind of inch their way up to the wood ash and they kind of don't want to cross it. A couple of the really big ones went across but the rest of them actually stayed in the middle. So, this might work on smaller type of snails and slugs. Now, the facts. Copper strips. You can wrap a copper strip around a tree or a plant's stem or you can make a barrier just kind of sitting around maybe a seedling of copper tape. And Slug Help's video really was cool because you could see the slugs and the snails go up and touch the copper. Now, the copper, when it touches the skin of the snails and slugs, there's this chemical reaction that almost shocks the slugs and the snails. It doesn't feel good. And you can see in the video, they touch it and they jerk back. Now, in the second video, there was, he had one inch, a one inch strip of the copper and the snail kind of very slowly made his way across that. When he doubled it to two inch width, the snail would not cross. So, this one I'm gonna say is fact. It definitely works. All right. The next one is snakes. Yes, they work. Yes, non-venomous snakes are great to have in the garden. Yada, yada, yada. I hate them. I'm scared of them. I don't want them in my garden. So, they do work. So, if you wanna talk anymore about this, don't talk to me. Just Google it. Now, what do you wanna bet? I'm gonna get more comments on that snake thing than anything else on this video. Okay. How about lizards? Can we compromise? I'm okay with lizards and they will help eat snakes. I'm okay with lizards and they will help eat slugs and snails. Now, there are a number of ways to attract lizards to your garden. They like tall grass, thick mulch, ground cover, nice big rocks where they can sun themselves, a pile of rocks or a pile of logs, although those will attract snakes as well. Frogs are harmless. They will help control your slug and snail, mostly slugs. I have seen some eat snails as well. So, add a water feature to your garden. You're gonna love it. The frogs are gonna love it and they'll help you get rid of your snails and slugs. Now, the most reliable way when I lived at the beach and did have a problem with slugs and snails was a product containing iron phosphate. I loved Sluggo. It's a great product. I am not sponsored but it does work just as well as the dangerous ones that will kill your pets. This will not. This is safe for humans and pets and animals but not snails. Not sponsored. Just love it. I will put a link down below to the products I love section of my website where you can find that and a ton of other things that I love. If you learned something from this video, please give the video a thumbs up. It does help the video, helps the channel, it pushes it out there to a wider audience and I will see you next time.