They love yeast. They can’t resist it. That, diatomaceous earth, eggshells, and copper mesh will become your best friends in your outdoor grow, and the snails worst nightmare.
Get some pie tins, cut a 2" hole in the middle and turn up the edge of the hole. Place the pie tin on the ground so your plant goes through the hole. What you fill the pie tin with is purely up to you:
Beer - yeast in the beer will attract them, falling into the beer in the tin will make them drown.
Egg shells - snails hate sharp objects. Fill the tin with crushed eggshell and it will keep them off of your plant.
Diatomaceous Earth - Same as eggshell. It’s made of fossilized marine organisms. Like eggshells, its sharp, abrasive texture will damage the skin of slugs and snails, causing them to dehydrate and become unalive. Fill the tin, and sprinkle it heavily around problem areas and add more after watering or rainy periods.
Copper Mesh - Snails get unalived when they touch copper for too long. Get yourself a roll of copper mesh and lay it out around your plant so that the snails must cross 10" of it minimum before they can get your plant, they’re not living much anymore by then.
It’s easier outside to give them a bath or shower. Taking the hose and spraying them down vs lifting pots and dunking them. Or waiting until finished and having to mix 3 5 gallon containers to wash and rinse.
lol accidentally push like twice and it said I can’t take my vote back but… I wasn’t trying to take a vote back so careful if you already put up a vote don’t tap more then once lol
Outdoor grows also have the advantage of all the natural predators of the bugs that eat you weed are all there to keep pest problems at bay.
In addition to the deterrants already listed, glue traps are very effective against beetles. Coffee grounds can deter slugs and Corry’s slug and snail bait can be used around contaIners as I believe the most recent formula is iron salts.
Dr. Bronner’s castile soap works great as an insecticidal soap. Use around dawn or dusk to avoid killing pollinators.
Indoor is worse I think. Seems harder to get rid of them. Basically have to kill each and every single one.. outside they may just move on with some gentle persuasion…
I’ve not grown indoors so can’t speak to the severety of bugs indoors but outdoors they are the least of my worries. Once I put the 4 inch copper tape around my pots the slug and snail worries were gone. One year cucumber beetles got bad but yellow glue traps with a little clove oil took care of them. 1-2 tbsp food grade DE in a qt of water sprayed on leaves during veg will kill most small bugs when it dries. Don’t want to use it during flower though. I don’t care to use neem oil but some swear by it.
Ive had gnats a couple times indoors and powdery mildey a time or two outdoors. And of course bud rot…but all in all i been pretyy lucky with not havin too bad a problem.
