Organic Snail and Slug Repellant

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Snails and slugs can wreak havoc in your garden.  They can completely devour your plants in a few days and kill young plants as quickly as overnight.  After my hostas were demolished last year, I decided to look into ways that I could protect them without using harsh chemicals.  My solution….Coffee.

First let’s take a look at other alternatives.  The most common organic way to kill slugs is by using salt (ok its actually by chopping their heads off, but I am going to assume that most people do not want to go around hacking up snails).  Salt causes desiccation or drying out.  While salt is effective, who wants to keep sprinkling salt everywhere.  It kills them on contact, but doesn’t prevent them from coming back after the rain has washed the salt away.  In addition, salt causes soil to become toic.  This kills other plants and animals that are not tolerant of salt in the soil.

Some people also use chemical bait in the form of pellets or meal.  The problem with this type of bait is that most slug and snail bait contain a chemical called metaldehyde.  Metaldehyde unfortunately can be fatal to animals, especially small animals such as birds.  If you have an edible garden, this is definitely not a wise choice to repel snails and slugs.  Metaldehyde attacks the nervous system and can cause panting, vomiting and seizures.  Within hours your pet can die from digesting this substance or can end up with liver failure.  And of course, what’s not good for your pets is certainly not good for your children.  If you must use a chemical (maybe you don’t have enough coffee to go around), try using a bait that contains a natural mineral called iron phosphate.  It is already a component of soil and it is safer for your garden and your family.

So now back to the organic solutions, slugs apparently HATE caffeine!  A 1-2% caffeine solution is a great way to keep slugs from your plants and it is definitely a safe alternative to pesticides.  While instant coffee works (it has a .05% caffeine concentration), brewed coffee has up to twice the caffeine than instant coffee (bring on the espressos).  Sprinkle the coffee grounds If you brew your own coffee in the morning, then you just found another way to recycle and reuse!  If you do not drink coffee, Starbucks gives their used coffee grounds to customers for free!  Contact your local Starbucks and they will give you their old coffee.

Now before putting down the coffee, here are some other things you can do to deter slugs from eating your plants without killing them:

1. Pull your weeds.  You should already do this, but it also keeps slugs from making your garden a permanent home.
2. Move your compost.  If you have your own compost bin, try to keep it at a safe distance from your garden.  Be mindful that although leaves are a great compost, they are also food and shelter for snails and slugs.  If you want to compost your leaves, by a compost bin and set it up in an area away from your garden.
3. Prune your branches.  If they are laying on the ground, they serve as a home to slugs and especially their eggs.
4. Cultivate your soil. This unearths slugs and keeps them from burrowing.  It also keeps soil from becoming fungus food.
5. Pick up your litter. If you have boards, rocks or old pots, discard of them or put them in an area where they will not breed more slugs.
6. Trim your grass.  Slugs will use thick grass to protect themselves and lay eggs.
7. Add Plants. Add plants to your garden that repel slugs such as rosemary, lemon balm, wormwood, mint and tansy.

Some strange, but effective solutions that you can use in addition to coffee:

1. Beer.  I have been finding all over the internet as well as a friend who is a horticulturist that snails absolutely love to get drunk.  You sit a bowl of beer in your garden and they jump right in and die a miserable death by drowning.  I haven’t tried this, but just for the sake of fascination, I may try this at least once this year.
2. Melon Rinds.  Apparently slugs love melon.  You put the rinds around your plants and by morning they are snacking on them.  You then remove the rinds by putting them in a plastic bag and disposing of them in the trash or composting them after a few weeks (sorry, but I don’t think that would work for me as I heard dead slugs smell really bad!)
3. Copper Stripping.  Snails will not come near copper.  I love how God has all these natural remedies to counteract problems in nature.  Add copper stripping around the plants with the most problems.

**Note:  Picture copied from Wikipedia