ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605140001
SECTION: HOMES PAGE: D-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOAN JACKSON SAN JOSE (Calif.) MERCURY NEWS
I have snails. Now I know what it means to hate. I've never felt like this - not when the birds stole my cherry crop or the aphids ruined my roses or someone made off with my giant pumpkin.
But snails - oh, boy. In case you haven't noticed, snails (and their kissing cousins, the slugs) are horrible this year. It's from the dampness. They crawl around in the greenery, mate like crazy, and feast on everything in sight.
How bad is bad? They're even eating the weeds!
I bought these little green houses and poured beer in them. They drank the beer and sashayed away. Put out copper barriers. They sneaked under. Made pot after pot of coffee, which kept me awake, just so I could toss the grounds. Then broke a bunch of eggs, which I don't eat, for the shells. Nada.
By then I was seriously mad. I went out late at night with the flashlight, collected snails and dunked them in a bucket of soapy water. They died clean. I crushed some underfoot, threw others in the street - and cackled at the carnage. My neighbors caught me out there. Now they avoid me.
So, what has all this accomplished? Not much. The word has passed through the snail grapevine: Great snacks at the Jackson household. But avoid the crazy woman with the flashlight.
Like me, Lorena Pledger of San Jose, Calif., is totally disgusted with snails. ``I definitely think snails are extra bad this year. Even bait hasn't slowed them down,'' says Pledger, a master gardener with the University of California Cooperative Extension.
Snails reproduce madly in cool, moist spring weather. All that sex has led to zillions of babies. ``I have noticed there are a lot more baby snails doing damage than adults,'' Pledger says. The tiny things crawl inside flowers and hide under leaves. For instance, if your daffodils look strange with their cups missing, blame the baby snails.
The guy doing all this damage is the imported brown garden snail Helix aspersa. These creatures with their tough shells and slimy bodies are from Europe. It is believed that our snail problem started with French restaurants in San Francisco raising snails in their basements in the 1800s. Some got away. The rest is history.
Which brings us to the dilemma of commercial baits (i.e. poisons) vs. homemade organic concoctions. Let's admit, right off, that poison baits work. No question there. If you put out the Deadline or the Bug-Geta pellets or Cory powder, you will soon see dead bodies.
The problem is that the bodies could be something other than snail carcasses. Dogs and cats can be poisoned if they eat these baits. Small children can pick them up and that is something you do not wish to see.
If you must use poison, one solution is to put out the pellet bait at night so that it softens in the dew. Little fingers can't pick up the bait, but it might look extra tempting to a pet.
Deadline is a liquid that is applied from a squeeze bottle. But, again, a determined pet might try to lick it.
Nonpoisonous home remedies are worth a closer look, though. Pledger, for one, uses a couple of household items to spray the plants she sells. ``It's very important that I don't have snails and chewed leaves,'' she says.
The Pledger remedy: 1 cup of household ammonia to 3 cups of water, plus a dash of dish soap. Put in a spray bottle and spray plants at night. ``Since I grow in containers, this is easier to do than if you have plants all over the yard planted in the ground. I spray around the soil and on the leaves. Don't spray flower blossoms but spray the buds,'' she says.
The concoction kills snails or slugs on contact, Pledger says, and also adds nitrogen to the plant. ``You get instant results. It works on spider mites on indoor plants as well.''
Household vinegar is another choice. A 50-50 vinegar and water solution can be sprayed directly on plants or slugs. Don't make it any stronger though, because it could burn the plants.
A direct hit with fresh lime juice kills as does a concoction called ``slug juice,'' writes Rhonda Massingham Hart in her book ``Bugs, Slugs and Other Thugs,'' (Storey Communications, $9.95.).
You can whip up a batch of slug juice by putting the remains of a cup or two of dead slugs (or smashed snails) in a blender, pureeing them and then straining the resulting mush. Sprinkle it around the area you wish to protect.
A copper barrier also works. Hart says, ``Since copper carries a weak electrical charge, slugs and snails get a charge out of it.'' Buy a very thin (.002 inch thick) copper sheet, the type used in the electronics industry. Cut it into strips to line the border of each bed.
Fruit trees, Hart says, can be protected with a three-inch-wide strip of copper sheeting wrapped around the trunk about 11/2 feet up from the ground.
Keep in mind that the tree must be snail-free before the barrier is applied. Otherwise you have snails ``trapped'' in the tree, where they can eat their little hearts out.
Snails and slugs don't like rough things in their path. Hart says the rough stuff irritates the soft moist skin of the snail and it dehydrates itself to death in its effort to expel the irritant.
That's why used coffee grounds, egg shells, sand and sawdust find their way out to the garden as barriers. Hart has another candidate: human hair. ``Snip the coarse hair into tiny pieces and scatter it in areas frequented by snails, and you can eliminate many of them,'' she writes.
Pledger says ash from the fireplace can be used - but cautiously - because too much of it will change the soil pH. ``As long as the ash stays dry, the snails won't cross it,'' she says.
The most famous snail deterrent is beer in a plate. But that seems like such a waste of your Bud Lite.
Hart has brewed a better beer: Allow fruit peelings to ferment in a quart of water along with 1/2 package of dry yeast and 1/2 cup of water. Use a shallow pie pan or empty cat food can deep enough to drown the snail. Press the dish down into the soil until the rim is even with ground level. ``They crawl in, get sloshed and drown,'' Hart says. Empty out the dead snails and slugs and refill every two or three days with new brew.
So, in the end, does any of this work?
The best solution would be to launch a multiple attack. Spread coffee grounds, put out copper barriers, lay down some hair, and keep the beer flowing. You might just win this battle.
LENGTH: Long : 111 linesby CNB