What do you do to get rid of slugs and snails in veggie garden?

[didispunk]

We just planted our winter garden and we are not sure what is the best to use for keeping the little buggers off our nice greens.


Thanks

[Loula]

we crush up egg shells and place them around the plants as we have a dog that eats everything and didnt want snail bait.

you can also try beer in a bowel, but you have to clean up the dead ones yuck!

OOps forgot to add

donmt crush them up to much you need them to be nice and sharp! it puts the snails off

[shazzi]

I don't use anything for snails.

i find my basilica's get savaged by cabbage moth and their little green caterpillars. I have used Dipel. It contains a naturally occurring bacteria and does not kill other insects. So the packet says. It is the only way i can get a crop of cabbages and broccoli. I used to try picking the caterpillars off the leaves every morning and night and squishing them and sometimes I would rub the dead ones over the leaves (you can make a spray of dead caterpillars all mixed up) but that was soooooo time consuming and they kept winning.

[Lenny]

We found that the natural solutions didn't have quite the effect as the store bought snail bait. I use one with iron chelate as it's meant to 'improve' the soil as well.
I have small pieces of black PVC pipe nailed to the garden edging. I put the snail bait in this. It's big enough for the snail (or slaters were our big problem) to get in, but dogs and cats can't get it (nailed down so that the dog didn't just play with it). It was a bit of an effort to start with, but worth it for me in the long run.
I have heard that egg shells are great, as well as other gritty things that hurt the snail.
Try the ABC Gardening Australia website too. They have ideas/fact sheets for all gardening issues.

[AnyDream]

The Multiguard snail pellets - it's basically a chellated mineral in a sawdust base - no harm to animals & it breaks down to add minerals to the soil. Have been using them for years. Get it down asap, once they find your greens they can decimate them in a night or two, if they're small.

Lenny the tubing idea is a great one.

Re the caterpillars, there is a spray called Dipel which is essentially a microorganism which is death to caterpillars but no problem for bigger animals...quite acceptable in organic circles.

[EdisonCheug]

I'm a bit confused by Loula and Shazzi...
but anyway, thanks for the advices.