Do you want to protect the crop, but not to endanger the natural balance in the garden to fight slugs? Or even the life of hedgehogs or pets? Fortunately, there are many considerate methods.
The silvery slime shining tracks in the morning Rose tell the stories of the wandering for food, shelter and reproduction. And each head of the snail. We usually look at those with a shell with sympathy, those without a shell – let us call them simply slugs – but we often chase and kill them. However, if we strive for harmony and biodiversity in the garden, it is important to understand their ecological function and at the same time distinguish between domestic slugs and invasive Spanish. Let’s look at the fascinating world of snails a little closer.
In the attached video you can learn how to easily make a simple barrier against slugs:
Slim, snail, snail or Plzák – how to know them?
Snails They are the widest category that includes all molluscs with the leg, the head and possibly the shell.
Snail There are snails with a shell that they can hide or winter in it. Among other things, they eat slug eggs, thereby regulating their population.
Slugs There are snails who do not have a shell or is stunted inside the body. They move better in narrow spaces, but are more vulnerable to predators and drying up. Our home slugs include as Ash, colorful, spotted or slug.
Plzák It is a type of slug. In our country, the original species is for example Plzák forest. We meet uncomfortably with the invasive Pilsen Spanish, which can be for the harvest of disaster.
What helps us
All snails have an important place in the natural cycle. They help to break down organic residues, enrich the soil with nutrients and are an important part of the diet of a number of animals, including some domestic poultry (Indian runners, musk or hens). In the garden they act as a cleaning platoon that contributes to maintaining a healthy environment for other organisms. They do not hesitate to consume feces or corpses, including members of their family.
The presence of snails brings high diversity to the garden, as eggs and young slugs feed on many other animals – hedgehogs, frog, blind, slice, ground beetle, multinational, scythe, starlings, lizards, lights larvae, rejex and many others. The occurrence of these helpers can also be supported by the offer of shelters, such as wild corner, various houses, piles of branches, freely laminated compost, bird booths, higher grassland, dry walls or humid habitats.
The unwanted plzak of the Spanish
His homeland is the Iberian Peninsula and Western France. It was first recorded in the Czech Republic in 1991 and its population has grown rapidly since then. It is much more competitive than our domestic species. It is more aggressive, produces more slime, which allows it to survive even in drier conditions and, last but not least, it is also highly fertile. Adults in our country do not have natural enemies. It becomes a dominant species extruding the original ones.
How to have snails under control
You can rely on the appetite of their natural enemies, which is a long -term sustainable solution. However, it requires patience and overall change in access to garden care. So what can you do to regulate Pilsen Spanish?
The basis is to prevent. Adults are usually subject to the first frosts. However, the eggs placed in autumn or young individuals hibernate. The autumn removal of mulch and loosening of the soil before a complete frost brings eggs and young slugs to the surface where they either eat something or destroy them. Watering – not flat, but only to the roots, preferably in the morning, and reduce mulching by thick layers of materials will help.
Effective method is collection. Please avoid all the drastic ways of killing. For some cruel and lengthy killing methods that people recommend each other, even Dracula or Genghischans would not be ashamed. If you do not want to take the collected snails to the forest or to the rummaker and if you decide to kill them, The most abandoned way is to pour in boiling water. You can then leave a bucket of water and slugs for 3 to 4 days, reap the contents and use the resulting flower beds. Equally repulsive as this solution affects us on surviving slugs.
The slugs are unpleasant to the slugs Planting some aromatic plants (mustard, slot, garlic, onion, parsley, marigold, sage, mint or lemon balm). As well as trimmings on the paths eg from Vratič, Fern, Tuje, Wormwood or Horsetail.
Slugs also avoid harsh or dry materials. Silting, shells, sharp sand, chaff, needles, wooden ash or coffee grounds can be poured into the necessary places. A low -chopped lawn belt around the flower beds also prove a good service. Often recommended copper is unpleasant for the slugs, but if they are hungry, they will climb it.
There are i mechanical barriersprotecting especially young plants. Plastic or metal collar or sandpaper. It is good to know that a physiologically slug cannot overcome the shape of the number 1 or the inverted letter J. In Germany, paints are also sold to elevated flower beds where Slimák cannot stay.
Beer trap Although they are effective, they will also get to the garden and slugs from a wide area.
The use of parasitic nematodes. These can be applied directly to the soil in the form of diluted powder, where they actively seek their hosts that they then kill. Plzáci are cannibal, so these microscopic parasitoids spread quickly and reliably in their community. However, they are especially effective in young individuals. It should be noted that the attacked slugs are dying in the soil, so people can sometimes think that nematodes do not work.
Granules against slugs
There are two types of these products. Moluskocids Methiocarb and metaldehyde are also dangerous for cats, dogs, sheep or poultry (in Methiocarb) or toxic to the soil fauna (metaldehyde). Overall, they are also very dangerous for hedgehogs, frogs or birds, who if they eat a poisoned slug, will also die. The second group consists of preparations whose active substance is phosphate ferrous – a substance naturally occurring in nature, which in the snails (including garden snails) evokes a feeling of satiety, then they stop eating and mistakenly saturation. It follows that after granules the ecologically -minded gardener should really reach the situation of the last rescue.
O Author
Iva Musilová As the mother of three children and the breeder of various animals, she perceives the garden as a living organism that combines family, nature and sustainable lifestyle. Years of experience and a number of courses have also complemented formal education in the field of garden and landscape works, which are now also professionally devoted. More on
Source: Recipe magazine,
