Natural Predators – Norman A. Rubin
(Slugs and snails can cause a great deal of damage in your garden. These mollusks are considered the most serious pests, which attack young plants.)
When you look in your garden in the morning, you may find shiny trails criss-crossing over small stones and along the earth. When you look closer you can see that they are made of hardened slime. They show that slugs and nails have been there, but you do not often see the mollusks themselves unless you look for the. For snails and slugs are soft-bodied creatures which could dry up easily if they were to stay too long in the air or under the sun. In fact, they do not dry up, because slugs stay tucked under a leaf plant or stone or buried in the soil, while snail can draw their bodies into their shells.
The two invertebrates both move about by crawling along on their feet, which is flat underneath their bodies. Each ripple of their feet pushes them along the ground and moves these creep-crawlies along. As snails and slugs move they leave a trail of slime behind them.
The snails and slugs, big and small, in a small garden are usually there in the thousands, so the amount of damage they cause to the plants is very great. The slug and snail scrapes the plant they are crawling on with its tongue, so that bits of plant are torn off with their sharp teeth. As their tongues rolls back into the mollusk’ mouths, the bits of plant are brought in as well. Slugs leave distinguishing marks on your leaves and on your soil. Huge ragged holes chewed in leaves and flowers of older plants or having your seedlings vanish overnight, is a pretty clear sign that you have slugs and snails.
As we marvel at these creatures’s survival and habit we are equally appalled at the damage caused to our garden. Slugs and snails thrive best in flower gardens that are thick, cool, and moist. They abhor the sun, so one way to make them admit defeat is to let the sun in anyway that you can.
To control slugs and snails avoid using slug pellets and other pesticides in your garden. These harm the frogs, birds and hedgehogs that are natural slug and snail predators. Instead, enlist their help in keeping pests under control. Encourage them to visit your garden by providing food and shelter. A number of invertebrates such as glowworm larvae prey on slugs. Ground and rove beetles eat both slug eggs and the adults. These beetles, along with centipedes that also eat slugs, prefer damp shady areas so you can encourage them by leaving logs and stones undisturbed. Build a rockery or a rotted woodpile in a shady dam spots in you garden to attract these species. There are other natural ways to control these pests in your garden – Log on ‘http://tastefulgarden.com/store/pc/contact.asp’ for Natural Pest Control Methods against snails and slugs, as well other destructive insects and mollusks that affect a garden..
Notes:
1) Snails and slugs come out mainly at night, especially after it rained, and the soil and air are moist. A point to remember – some slugs and snails are natural garden dwellers that recycle dead plant material for us.
2) Don’t forget that other garden wildlife depends on these mollusks for their food source, especially song thrushes, hedgehogs, toads and shrews. By eliminating slugs and snails from your garden you will be depriving these predators of their food supply and they are then unlikely to visit your garden. We all love to see plenty of birds in our gardens. Many of these are searching for insect food, so encouraging birds will help to maintain a balance of insects, mollusks and other minute predators.
