Snails! The Enemy!

They look so small and harmless. They look so slow and demure.

They are none of these things! They are the enemy! Nothing more to it than that! What do I speak of? Snails! Snails and their little homeless friends, slugs!

The weather is still inclement for the intrepid allotmenteer in Dover and so I resorted to building my little green house as I told you before. In just one night I have found 6 little budding urban terrorists marching towards my red cabbage seedlings! The cheek!

So how do we deal with them?

1. Chemical warfare. Now I know that seems harsh and will certainly not appeal to the organic among you, but sometimes I feel pushed that far! If that is a no then what about...

2. Drain pipes, loo rolls or plastic bottles. Mad as it sounds (though obvious to many out there I am sure) a physical barrier to deter the little slime-meisters can work wonders. The plastic bottles also double up as a cloche.

3. Eggshells. Now this does seem to work, but it is a bit time consuming and fiddly for me. First wash your eggshells and take out the filmy membrane from the inside. Leave to dry out for a few days somewhere sunny. Crunch up the eggshells (not too finely) and then sprinkle liberally around your plants. The theory is that they will not want to crawl over the nasty pointy eggshell. Sharp sand apparently works quite well too.

4. Salt. Yes I know it's cruel and I really can't condone this, but there is no doubting at all that a ring of salt around your plants will work - if the weather is dry.

5. Hand picking and removing and providing the local thrush population with a decent size stone they can use as an anvil to break them open with. Not my idea of breakfast but who am I to argue!

That's my top five tips. First thing tomorrow I will be seeing if they are back!

All this before I even leave the garden!