Snails crossing my path

Do you have snails problem in your garden? Or do you simply want them out of your path as you do not want to crush them by accident? You might laugh at me here, but I seriously screamed when I stepped on a snail that rainy night. It was a gross experience for me and I can still remember the slimy, slippery feeling crawled on my feet and it also sounded like I have crushed an egg shell.

Fortunately, there are some useful pest control methods to repell them from walking across your path. Some of the common ways are:-

You can use broken egg shells, used coffee grounds, sharp sand or coarse gravel as a natural pest repeller to block off their paths that you are likely to cross the way. You can also use this to surround the plants you want to protect. In this way, the snail will avoid difficult pathways. Another effective way is to use copper foil or to use copper sulfate. For the copper foil or bands, use it to wrap around the planting beds and regularly clean the surface with vinegar. It was said that its effectiveness is because copper is toxic to most invertebrates that includes snails.

Some Gross Methods
This sounds a little gross to me but I guess in the light of helping the ecosystem to turn the food chain wheel, you can crush the snail and feed it to the fishes. I recalled one of my ex-colleagues wanted the snail shells and so subject the poor snail in the microwave so that the body will dislodge from the shell. The thought of it really grossed me up and I hope you are not considering that option.

Other Related Reference

1) Snails and Slugs

2) Pest snails