Gardener's 'natural' 20p method to prevent slugs and snails from 'attacking' plants

Slugs and snails can prove to be seriously irritating when it comes to your garden

Slugs can be the bane of any gardeners life as they destroy plants – but there’s a simple way to stop them invading your garden.

The pesky pests can often chomp their way through leaves, stems, plants, even tubers and bulbs which will kill plants and ruin all your hard work.

Now gardening expert and horticulturalist Adam Pasco explained that slugs and snails love tender new shoots, and if they eat them, gardeners won’t get any plants at all. So he has shared some natural and effective ways to banish them and stop them ruining all of your hard work.

Did you know that in each garden, there are approximately 15,000 slugs living there? And they’re the pesky critters that can come and munch on your plants without warning. Slugs are also active throughout the year, which means that you need a method that isn’t just going to serve you in the spring and summer.

Adam Pasco shared different ways to control the pests “naturally and without resorting to harmful chemicals” in a video for B&Q, reports the Express.

The expert recommended using barrier products like grit or sharp sand to put around the plant to stop the slugs and snails from getting anywhere near the plant. 20kg of grit can be purchased from The Range for just £4.99, working out at 20p for 1kg, which should suffice for numerous plants. If youd rather purchase online, you can get 20kg of potting grit for £14.75 on Amazon.

If you sprinkle it around the plants it will “stop the slugs and snails crawling over the soil surface and reaching the plants to protect them from attack.” A method he used to exterminate slugs and snails was to fill jam jars with salty water and place them in it – or you could place them in another area of the garden where there are no plants.

Or, in beds, borders, and around vegetable plots, gardeners can dig a hole, sink a jam jar or plastic yoghurt pot into the ground so the rim of the pot is level with the soil surface, and fill them with beer. Known as ‘beer traps’, slugs are attracted to the smell, and will crawl along and fall into the drink, drowning them.

Once the container has some slugs in there, throw the container and the dead slugs away. Copper rings can also be used to deter slugs. These can be bought from garden centres or online and fixed to pots and containers. The ions in the copper emit an electrical charge which gives slugs a non-lethal shock when they move over it.

Will you use any of these methods to rid your garden or slugs and snails? Let us know in the comments.

A version of this story was first published on May 9 2023.