Creating garden organic art that are work as tools to get
rid of snails.
Snail ranch come on in and never check out.
Other tools I have made effective in my suburban neighborhood of
South Orange County are: my organic snail eradicator, my special stick around ladybug
house, Noni’s female dog sauce elixir for no brown spots, and a host of tips of
what to plant next to your tomatoes, peppers and roses to keep away pests. The
problem is my tools aren’t “pretty.” I want them to be durable and beautiful
rather than what I have is MacGiver recycled containers crazy glued together.
This post is about a snail trap prototype that I am making and prize for your
input.
Idea A.
The snail ranch will be a ceramic or porcelain house with a hole and lid that can be removed. I am thinking of making it as a simple box bird house.
After making twenty different “snail ranches” I’m ready to
build a pretty prototype to sell. “Snail
ranch”- is a nicey nice term I use for traps
that capture snails that are being permanently removed from my garden. A couple
of kind gardeners posted about putting
the snails they gather into zip lock bags, placing them into the freezer for a
quick gentle death and others who release them into a stream. Freezing to death
is might be more painful than my quick smash. My snail hut is designed to
capture slugs overnight, immobilize snails until I do a manual squish. You can
trust these buggers to a baggy in the garbage (I find some escape and I want
them to never to return to my yard). This
is snail war.
When my children were younger paid them to gather snails in
a plastic bucket with a flashlight as if it was a fun game. It has become impossible
to engage in battle them as teens. My teenage son says I ought to make the snail trap an army bunker, but that's not the pretty look I am aiming towards.
I’m
not allowed to have chickens where I live (once had lovely hens who roamed
around doing the chore and as hard as I try I can’t seem to encourage toads to
stick around). The only natural predator easily accessible to my Orange County
California yard is crows. I have trained the crows to wait around in the morning
for my cup full of snails tossed into the middle of the street. The crows have
become peaceful inhabitants, but that’s another story.
Idea D
a box with a real house perhaps a Dutch or English Cottage printed on the ceramic?
Nothing seems to easily “kill” the mollusks. They only are slowed down by crushed eggshells, sandpaper, cinders, wood ashes, and
diatomaceous earth (this will need replacing if it gets wet), work well as a barrier.
Putting mint or sage in your mulch is reported to do a good job of repelling them. Which snail trap is both cute and one you might try in your garden?
Idea E a white or bisque finish that has removable lid and hole in rear to match any garden?
Another scratchy material they don't like to cross is sandpaper. You can make sandpaper collars to put around your plants if you have the time. I don’t find this works as the paper renders worthless as soon as you water.
This ammonia mix of: 1 cup water to 1 cup ammonia
and 1 tablespoon of Murphy’s oil soap to make it stick seems to piss hem off and
doesn’t wreck you soil like salt. It is the AK47 of the spray bottle in the
slug war but you have to find the enemy and get it on them. The slugs hate it
and die quickly. Plants love the ammonia it is pure nitrogen (and some H3). Consider
this the Marine Corps down and dirty battle. Personally I prefer two methods:
pick and squish the big ones and leave snail ranch traps out and refill with
secret bomb juice every other day. My dogs will eat the bomb juice filled with
fresh escargot but they won’t eat the snails. This is not harmful to dogs.
Idea F
I love these little sculptures I would need to make the house larger- smaller than a bread box and larger than a grapefruit with a blue bird of happiness on top? or maybe threatening with a crow?
Please give your input on the prototype and there is
a prize!
Yes anyone who votes on one of the images for the exterior appearance
of my snail trap gets a two free taco coupon. Why a two free taco coupon from
Jack in The Box? It just seems funny for
an organic gardener to give away junk food. Make a comment and leave some bread
crumb trail to find your mailing address where I can send the taco coupon. Make
two votes get two coupons… or show me some gingerbread house design that I can
make out of porcelain.
More to follow - secret sauce, and the final mock up
