I found an old January 1993 copy of Organic Gardening and wanted to share this funny story I found in the “Letters to the Editor”.  It made me chuckle.

I hate writing letters, but since no one else has told you how to live in peace with slugs and snails, I guess I’ll have to.

My husband (who is weird but lovable) took a liking to snails when we lived in Seattle.  I would be in the garden getting slimed and he would come along and tell me “Don’t kill ’em.”  “Fine with me,” I’d say, “I don’t like killing anything, but they can’t stay here.”  So he took them away.

Later, I realized he had been going outside about an hour after dark every night and spending a half hour out there.  So I followed him—he had the flashlight with him and was headed for a narrow strip of soil between the sidewalk and rock garden.  And there they were—scores of slugs and snails chowing down on broccoli stems, an old carrot and wilted weeds he had pulled earlier in the day.  He had a snail in one hand and a paint pen in the other.  He was putting the number 83 on the snail’s shell!

There are lots of numbered snails running around (well, sliming around),.  As I soon discovered, they came to that spot at the same time every night where he would feed them!

The soil was improved from all that snail and slug poop, my plants were left pretty much alone, my husband had a cheap hobby that took him out in the fresh air every night, and I no longer had the moral dilemma of killing those slimy critters.

The key here is wilted veggies.  Put them in the same place every night and the same time they will come. 

Toni Branham,  Silverado, Colorado

(Editor then wrote:  I’m calling the police.)

Also, in this issue was a great hint on natural pest control:  using grapefruit seeds — or any citrus seed to control potato beetles.  You dry the seeds for a few days and then grind them up.  Then add water.  The article states that it makes something of a paste, so getting the right ratio of water that won’t gunk up your sprayer but not too much that it dilutes the limonin (that is the ingredient that repels them).