Succulents, Snails, and Slugs; A Safe Solution

In intrepid snail (or snails) climbed nearly five feet of brown stem to eat these leaves!

 A bane of succulent gardeners, and in fact, gardeners in general, is the (locally) common brown snail and the slimy slug. These little mollusks (yes, they're in the same category as some of your favorite seafood) absolutely adore juicy succulent plants, and will go to extreme lengths to munch on their plump leaves.

Crested crassula (Son of Yog Sothoth), I have several of these taken from the giant parent plant.

The plants I find most often devastated by these garden pests are my thicker-leaved aeoniums and my crested crassulas. It's very obvious that the large, flat expanses of stems and branches of the crested (or monstrose) plants make an easy path to the copious leaves, and the aeoniums are either accessible by climbing their stems, or in the case of some plants, are right there on ground level for easy access.

There is a very simple and safe way to deter snails and slugs from climbing and eating your plants. Simply by mashing up eggshells into small pieces and scattering them around the bases of affected plants, you can keep the slimy beasties from even nearing your plants. The eggshell pieces are sharp and piercing, quite uncomfortable to delicate mollusk skin. I've ever dusted the plant itself with the pieces.

Making snail and slug deterrent.

It's quite easy to make this eggshell snail deterrent. I have a mortar and pestle, but eggshells are easily smashed in a variety of ways. First, after using the egg itself, wait for the shell to dry. Once the shell is dry, smash it into pieces about 1-3 mm in diameter. If you do grind shells with a mortar and pestle, you will wind up with sandy particles to larger particles. Just don't let the shell pieces be longer than a few millimeters.

I store the smashed shells in a jar in my kitchen, and take them outside to sprinkle liberally as needed. They are safe and beneficial to the soil, and are biodegradable. This is an excellent way of keeping poisons out of your garden!