Topic: What is it with snails?

[Magnolia]

What is it with snails? How do they know I have seedlings on the garden table? They can't have just decided to have climbed up the table leg etc just on the off chance that there might be something to munch on when they get there. Another 2 made into my greenhouse up 4 foot of shelving and across a tricky potting contraption - ignoring the pumpkins on the way and went straight for the courgettes. How do they know??? Smell? Luck? grrrrrrrrrrr They have now taken their 1st airborn flight aross the garden.

[Becca]

yes i am wondering how they know too.  maybe they can telocumminicate,   i have lettuce seedlings on highest shelf.  have found a slug on it every night for past week.  and each time i've been too late.  there is now only one seedling in the pot.   
i noticed that they seem to climb the inner panes of the greenhouse.

[tonybloke]

when one of them finds food, an excretion is increased in their slime trail. they follow these trails!! keep moving your plants around, this can help.
throwing them 'away' doesn't help, they do come 'home'. ones wiv broken shells don't seem to last, though ;)

[amphibian]

when one of them finds food, an excretion is increased in their slime trail. they follow these trails!! keep moving your plants around, this can help.
throwing them 'away' doesn't help, they do come 'home'. ones wiv broken shells don't seem to last, though ;)

I don't throw them 'away' i throw them hard at my shed, the side, spattered with their remains, serves as a warning to others.

Slugs I deal with differently, I have a long metal skewer and i stab them, like a litter picker... yummy slug kebabs.

[kt.]

When you find them,  put them in the middle of the road.  If they make their way back,  then, let them stay.   ;D ;D

[moonbells]

I reckon a lot of them get into greenhouses and the like through open windows. I've got my potting shed window on an auto-vent which I can't exactly monitor 24/7  ;D  and so I used that self-adhesive 'slug stoppa' copper tape round the window, so if they do make it up that far then they won't be able to pass.

The tape does work well - I've so far no holes in my potted hosta  (pot has a band of tape around it) and it's just starting to flower! And I've not noticed any slitherers in the potting shed either.

moonbells