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| Copper-bound pots and pots of beer to fight snugs and snails - 2019 |
When waging war you have to have tactics and be prepared to fight dirty. I have been growing a new kind of runner bean, Tenderstar, and have been waiting for copper tape to arrive before I risked planting them at the base of a metal obelisk. Last year I planted my Wisley Magic runner beans and over one night, slugs wrecked several young plants. I then covered the area with sharp gravel which did work, but this year wanted to try new tactics: copper and beer. Its a curious combination of love and hate because slugs and snails are repelled by copper and lured by beer. Personally, I like both!
Anti-slug and snail tactic one: Yesterday I cut away the bases of several small plant pots and stuck onto them a band of 2.8" wide copper tape (I used Zalava Copper Foil from Amazon). The foil peels off a backing and the copper foil is very sticky, like sticky tape for parcels.
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| Plantpot with base cut away |
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| Zalava copper foil stuck on plant pot |
I removed my young Tenderstar runner bean plants from their pots and planted them into the soil around the obelisk through the copper-covered pots. As you can see from the very top photo, the base of the plants' stems are well below the top rim of the coppered pots. The pots are pushed into the soil about half an inch with a lot of copper exposed. But, I wasn't taking any chances. Rain was forecast and all gardeners know how voracious slugs and snails get once they get a little rain on them and so I had a tactic number two. But first, Important note: I removed all the large leaves at the base of the runner bean plants so that no leaves overlapped the copper pots and gave slugs and snails the opportunity to access the plants without touching the copper. The bits of green foliage you see on the ground is because instead of composting, I simply chop non-woody plants prunings directly onto, and into, the soil.
Anti-slug and snail tactic two: I had bought a bunch of cheap, small, plastic picnic cups at the supermarket and I embedded them in the soil, near the obelisk, and into the cups I poured some pretty strong ale(5.4% Bishops Finger from Kent). I don't think it particularly matters what beer or ale you use except I understand that the snails and slugs go after the yeast. So, thinking about it now, it should also work with yeast fermented in sugar water. Some people consider this cruel. So do I, I do, but feeding pellets is cruel, allowing the pests to be eaten alive is cruel, using pesticides is cruel, when you think about it, but is it better to allow garden pests to destroy crops and ornamental plants? Do we spare the mosquito which has transmitted malaria and killed millions of people? Or the insects which transmit the parasite which causes Sleeping Sickness (trypanosomiasis) in Africa, or locusts which cause famine, and so on? A conscientious vegetarian said to me that she felt it was cruel to kill slugs and snails and she lets the frogs in her pond deal with them. Oh, yes, "much better to be eaten alive," I said!
This rainy morning, after an equally rainy night, I went out to inspect. There are many slugs that have died what some might call an enviable death by falling into and drowning in a vat of beer and, so far, there is no sign of slugs or snails going anywhere near the copper-foiled pots. Would the copper have worked just on its own? I don't know. Would the beer have kept away all slugs and snails on its own? I don't know that either. What I do know is that my plants are, to date, fine.
If you care about the welfare of slugs and snails, just try using the copper but if you have a garden full of large tubs containing precious and expensive mature plants, like I do (I have 16) you will need an awful lot of expensive copper to deal with the nuisances just in containers alone. The choice is yours.