Stupid questions don’t exist right!
I suffer less and less of snails in the big project garden, but people keep sending me interesting and less interesting articles and tips,
The best article i ever read about the topic was by a dutch permaculturist by the name of Marc Siepman.
https://marcsiepman.nl/artikel/ode-aan-de-slak/
It’s in dutch, but translating it isn’t much of a problem is it?
It explains mainly the merits and concludes there’s not a lot we can do about them, we’ll lose. Everything has been tried already.
Basicly it’s totally up landracing’s street describing how weak plants get singled out and too much nitrogen making them weak…
It’s also full of wonderful titbits of information like snails need to adapt their stomachs to every new plant they eat. That’s maybe why i get less snail problems, (chaos gardening) although cucumbers were totally gone in differing places and i’ve reseeded en masse for snail resistance selection. So chaos gardening works as a deterrent, adapting to a new crop all the time is time consuming for them, they’d rather move on,
I add to the confusion by lopping them around the garden if i find them eating my seeded grexes, just because i can. I know, it’s mean, but still i improved! From hunts snipping them in two bits to sometimes not even caring if i see one on a lettuce so there’s improvement.
There’s this thought that popped up and i ran with it while doing rather boring garden chores, are they territorial in any way? That would not go against many other species, although it’s quite laughable if i listen to the scientist in me that likes to lob everything immediately in the ‘that’s a ridiculous notion’ box… There were trees communicate and microbes are important and animals have feelings and don’t kill soils have been forever. But this detail aside, has anyone heard or read something similar like if they are territorial in any way, or is it true they’re nothing but a stomach with a good nose just randomly bumbling about?
And another thing, do plants leave chemical signals in the soil if they’re attacked by a certain plague a seedling can pick up upon and react accordingly?
I know it doesn’t make sense for a victim plant to leave a deliberate signal other then to it’s own kind if they’re around, to scream for insect help together chemically, but what if clever noses. which roots might turn out to be can pick up upon it and switch on a defense mechanism gene
These are great questions and I don’t have the answers. I’m just laughing imagining some snail-speed territorial standoff between two alpha snails while dramatic battle music plays in the background. 
Snails and slugs tend to re-use existing slime trails because it saves metabolic energy (secreting slime expands up to a third of the snail’s energy) and also the trails tend to go to useful places such as food or hiding spots. They will also follow the trails of other snails or slugs much the way that ants follow the pheromone trails of other ants. This leads to emergent behavior such as multiple snails or slugs swarming on a vulnerable food plant and decimating it, or similarly lots of snails hiding in the same place like under a board or rock. The slime trails serve as emergent meta-cognitive tools much in the same way as with ants and their pheromone trails. This kind of meta cognition makes sense for an animal with a very small brain. Thus, collectively snails are much smarter than they individually would appear to be.
Very interesting addition to my snail knowledge, they follow trails. Those mass attacks can be devastating, they’ve wrecked my brocolli plants. So i might have saved them by taking them off and mulching, breaking trails.
Anyway, moving away from annual Oleracea to breeding perennial collards, whatever nature throws at them, they’ll bounce back it seems.
@JinTX thanks for the imagery,
Wonderful article. I pasted a translation below for others.
Yesterday I heard from a neighbor who collected a hundred slugs from his garden last year. This year the slugs are avoiding the garden but are everywhere else. Reminded me of Joseph’s contract with potato beetles eating his nightshades.
Ode to Snails
Author: Marc Siepman, marcsiepman.nl
The snail, taxonomically classified under Gastropoda, means “stomach-footed.” The average gardener finds this a fitting description; it seems like little more than a stomach on a slimy foot. Because snails expose system flaws, they are not very popular among gardeners. Yet, ecologically, they are crucial. An ode to the snail!
Relationships
The essence of permaculture is to restore and maintain relationships in the greatest possible diversity. Thus, you can’t speak of harmful or beneficial organisms; they all have a function. Weakness parasites, like the tinder fungus, remove weakened trees from the system to make room for healthier specimens, which is immensely important. Snails do the same: they create space by removing (parts of) weak plants.
Snails have many more relationships with other organisms. For example, slugs transport the spores of mycorrhizal fungi, to name just one.
Food
Not all snails eat the same. Slugs, such as the common grey field slug, are known to cause significant damage to living plants. The garden snail can do the same. However, most snails prefer dead organic material and help convert it into food for plants. Snail droppings are rich in nutrients, contributing to plant health. Like worms: plants growing in soil with many worms experience 40% less snail damage.
Because snails prefer weak plants, your lettuce may be eaten to the ground while dandelions remain standing. If a garden has all the same plants, they are more easily eaten than when there are many different species mixed together. For each plant, the snails must adjust their digestive system, slowing them down.
The great grey slug (Limax maximus) or tiger slug is more useful than many think: besides live plants, it also eats other slugs and their eggs. You’ll benefit more than suffer from this slug. Glossy snails also eat the eggs of other slugs. And garden snails eat the algae off your plants. You should not lump all snails together.
When plants are eaten, they are forced to produce defense substances (like bitter substances, which are good for your digestion!). Wild plants become stronger because only the best-adapted specimens produce offspring. Plants also adapt over generations to the soil type, soil life, (micro)climate, animals in the area, and more.
However, we keep buying new seeds for plants selected for taste, size, shape, or color. Because the seeds are produced elsewhere, the plants that come from them are not adapted to local conditions. There’s no guarantee they are snail-resistant.
Shells
Snails love moist places because they easily dry out. In dry times, you see fewer of them: slugs go underground, and shelled snails stay in their shells, where they can survive for up to four years. That’s an advantage, but a shell also has drawbacks: shelled snails cannot live in places with little calcium. They also can’t go everywhere with a caravan on their back.
The largest shelled snail, the Syrinx aruanus, can grow up to 90 centimeters. Fortunately, it’s a sea snail!
Reproduction
A snail lays an average of six times a year, one hundred to two hundred eggs each time. You’ve probably encountered them: those small pearls in a small pit in the ground.
Let’s say one snail has a thousand offspring after a year. Now imagine that those thousand snails also each have a thousand offspring every year. The population would grow by a factor of a thousand each year – how long would that go well? If nothing kept the population in check, snails would cover the planet in a few years. But that doesn’t happen because they face limits. Nothing can grow indefinitely, including a snail population. One of those limits is the food supply, another factor is the number of predators.
Enemies
Snails have many natural enemies: hedgehogs, birds, frogs, toads, salamanders, slow worms, nematodes, insects like the snail killer, spiders, harvestmen, (the larvae of) ground and rove beetles, moles, shrews, grass snakes … the list is long. And that’s immediately another important function of snails: they are food for many animals. The more diversity in the types of organisms that eat snails, the smaller the chance they become a problem. During a dry period, for instance, it’s essential to have predators that don’t only eat snails; otherwise, they leave or die, and you can still have a snail plague.
Population
The population is determined by fertility, food supply, and the number of enemies. The more food there is, the more snails. But also: the more snails, the more predators. The two populations keep each other in balance, ensuring the snail population doesn’t cause significant damage to your plants. Naturally, some plants will be damaged (especially seedlings are vulnerable), but that’s part of it; it’s a natural way to increase diversity and ensure the system’s overall health.
Control
Many methods have been devised in the war against snails to kill the uninvited guests. Some people cut snails in half, others drown them in beer, some feed them to the chickens. Some take them to the forest, where they can cause significant damage. You can throw them into the neighbor’s garden, but they will come back; they are, in fact, slimy homing pigeons. Hand-picking doesn’t make sense: for every snail you find, there are five more underground. Barriers are also ineffective.
Some people use nematodes (Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita) against snails, thinking these are natural enemies and can’t hurt. However, danger lurks: if you release too many nematodes, the snail population becomes too small to support a healthy population of nematodes and other predators. If there’s too little food, the predator population will decline, possibly leading to a new snail plague. Toxins can also be deadly for predators and exacerbate the problem.
No matter how you combat snails, it always backfires. Snails are not the problem.
Symptom
In a healthy system, the prey population is kept in check by predators. If there are temporarily fewer snails because you killed them, some predators must look for food elsewhere. If they can’t leave, they die. The snail population can recover much faster than the predator population, resulting in a snail plague. The plague is not the problem; it is a symptom of an underlying issue: the lack of predators.
Integration
Grazers, plants, and predators form a trinity: inextricably linked trophic relationships essential for healthy systems. By integrating snails into your system, they can perform their beneficial functions without you experiencing the drawbacks.
When it comes to snails (and other “pests”), you must abandon the war mindset (“everything you don’t like must die”). Snails are an intrinsic part of any ecosystem. Without snails, no predators; without snails, no plant inspection service. Yes, a beloved plant may die occasionally. Plants that choose their own place are almost always healthier than plants whose place (and taste!) we determine. Plants we call weeds (actually all our native plants) are usually not eaten. We’ve cultivated our plants to a point where their defense systems no longer function adequately.
If you buy seeds from multiple suppliers and cross-pollinate them, your seeds will have much more genetic diversity. If you let only the strongest plants produce seeds, you mimic natural selection, and they will become increasingly adapted to local conditions. They will also taste different, but you’ll get used to that.
Balance
Only when you stop fighting can a balance between the snail population and the predator population be achieved. And only when that balance exists, with diversity being crucial, can the damage remain within limits. For example, if you only have a hedgehog, it will primarily eat shelled snails. Shelled snails eat the eggs of slugs, so the problem could become even worse.
It usually takes a few years to achieve a dynamic equilibrium, but that’s not long considering some people fight snails their entire lives, and the snails always win. What you can do is provide shelter for predators. You can leave leaves for hedgehogs to hibernate (and cut a hedgehog hole in the fence). Spiders and ground beetles live in a litter layer. Or you can create a pond for toads, frogs, and salamanders. Be creative!
Now that you understand how important snails are to the system, you can fully appreciate these beautiful creatures!
Great article, thanks for sharing. It’s very simple and makes a lot of sense, but isn’t necessarily immediately obvious. Especially for me who is extremely new to gardening. Lucky to be introduced straight into landracing, but there’s still that dichotomy of knowledge; controlling your environment and inclusive diversity.
I don’t know what exactly they are but I was given some rare potatoes which are currently being completely ravaged by slugs. They are ‘protected’ by rose thorns, egg shells and all sorts and of course it’s not working. If they produce any seed for me I will be delighted, and if not then I won’t worry. I have some other potatoes from the store and they are virtually untouched by slugs and will flower soon.
It’s interesting though because there are more than enough predators for the slugs where I am, and one of the main concerns for most conventional gardeners I speak to have is losing entire crops to pests. It just highlights how even if one ecosystem may be balanced then it still may not be enough. Much work needs to be done with land race gardening it seems!
Also, maybe I should think about getting a cat!
Since i got into biodiversity gardening i got a lot less slugs, snails, mosquitos and aphids. They’re still around but their predators are abundant and have taken refuge. Landrace gardening although helpful, won’t get rid of them completely, they’ll adapt along but the ravagers will always tend to attack the weaker less adapted plants first.
1/3 is for nature, 1/3 is for the community, 1/3 is for the planter
He’s great, translated Teaming with microbes in Dutch and travelled the country with a kids show about the soil biome, does speeches etc i’ve written to him about his next venture, landracing, but he didn’t reply.
Holland will be a hard place to conquer minds and souls for the adaptive seed saving community, as a mildly climated riverdelta, being the second largest exporter of food in the world from a place hardly seen on the world map… I’m dutch, i call it a people’s reserve.