GARDENING
How I won my battle with snails
Part 1: identifying the snail as the “enemy”
It all started this year when I sowed carrot seeds in the early spring…
This year I am gardening in a new place, and this brought me new challenges.
In the early spring, my son was 3 months old, and I planned to start feed him with solids when he complete 6 months. For that, I choose carrots that would grow in our garden. In this way, I would have 3 months to grow them.
I just didn’t expect that something mysteriously would come in the night and eat all my carrot seedlings…
To win a battle, first you need to know the enemy…
The first things I grew in my raised bed this year were Citronelle and mint. In my routine morning checks, I always noticed that there were some pieces of mint leaves in the soil.
Something wrong was happening there, but it didn’t matter much because still enough mint remained.
Then, I planted basil. In my routine checks, I noticed that the number of leaves from my basil was reducing every morning relative to the previous evening.
I didn’t have any clue on what was happening, since the mystery was happening in the night. However, in my morning checks, I always observed a translucent substance in the soil that intrigued me, but I had no idea what it was.
Finally, I sowed the carrots. See them to germinate; produce the cotyledonal and true leaves made me sooooo happy.
Unfortunately, this happiness didn’t last for long.
A few days after the germination, I did my daily evening check, and the seedlings were thriving. But, to my greatest disbelieve, in the next morning absolutely nothing remained of my loved carrots.
That was the last straw that break the camel’s back. I was very upset, but determined to get to the root of the matter.
After a moment of reflection, I realized the enemy had left a trail (that translucent substance I was finding every morning).
With that clue, I searched and found that snails and slugs leave that kind of trail in the soil. I also found that they have nocturne habits that explain why I never saw them in action during my routine checks.
I now had two suspects (snails and slugs).
To be sure if one or both of my suspects were the enemy, I made a trap with beer once it smell attracts them. I put beer in a plastic bottle and placed it at the level of the soil in the evening.
I anxiously waited for the next morning to see what I would find in that trap (if anything).
The next day, there was one snail in my trap. Ahaaa, I found the enemy!
I left the trap there and the next day I captured two more snails.
In this way, I figured out who was the enemy I was dealing with.
My experience up to here showed me that, of course, reducing the number of snails by capturing them helped to reduce the population. However, it didn’t solve the problem -my basil was still being consumed day after day.
Identifying the thief was the first step to plan and try the strategies that I used to prevent it from further stealing from my garden. Those, I will share in my next stories.
Snail was my #1 struggle this year in the garden. Which one was yours? Let me know in the comments…
