Snails

Question from Tressa:
I don’t have a question just a note for you.  I bought your organic gardening book last year and sent you a message asking for help with snails.  I was so impressed that you take the time to answer emails.  Anyway, we couldn’t use your suggestion of chickens but found deccollate (spelling ?) at the Armstrongs  in Claremont.  I know they are prohibited in some places but not claremont.  We bought one package and put them in our hillside vinca.  I thought they were dead & my family thought I was crazy, but I have almost no snails now & don’t control them except to pick the few that I have. I assume they are eating the garden snails.

Answer from Pat:
Thanks for this excellent comment on snails and for your kind comment on my blog. Yes, decollate snails really do work. Sometimes it takes a few years for them to get going, but once they do, our large (edible-escargot-type) snails are gone. The decollate snails only eat the babies so it takes a while for the large adult snails to die off. I’m glad you reminded me of how effective they can be since I think I will spread some this winter into ground covers and succulents. The only negative thing about decollate snails is that they eat small seedlings so if one likes to plant wildflowers or vegetables from seeds this can be a nuisance.

I have a succulent bank flanking my drive and this would be a good place for me to spread decollate snails since they won’t stray from it. Once the rains start, the snails get going munching on leaves and ruining the bank’s appearance. A couple of years ago I asked a volunteer who was helping me to spread Sluggo on that bank, a difficult task for me. My volunteer helper said that was one job she couldn’t do because she couldn’t kill anything, even a snail. I told her that life on a farm had prevented me from having similar feelings. But later that day and unbeknown to me she took pity on me and picked up all the snails she could find, bagged them in a brown paper bag, and put them into her truck, meaning to release them somewhere else on her way home. Then she promptly forgot them. A day or two went by and the snails got out and climbed all over inside the truck. They got under the roof, dashboard, and seats, onto the  windows and inside the windshield, and everywhere else. It was a super hot day, and the snails were trapped inside a closed hot truck. Of course they died. My friend the volunteer didn’t tell my for a year what had happened or how long it took her to get the horrendous smell of dead fish out of her truck!