They love salads and tender young plants and were therefore a thorn in the side of many a hobby gardener in the spring: slugs. Now in the summer you hardly see them. The reason for this is also bad for snails.
Hilpoltstein (dpa / lby) - The week-long period of fine weather with hardly a drop of rain also has an advantage for bed owners and allotment gardeners: it puts an end to the voracious slugs. "With the drought and heat, they've actually disappeared," reported Angelika Nelson from the State Association for Bird Protection (LBV). However, all other snail species do not tolerate the summer weather well either - and even the unpopular slugs are quite useful in the garden.
As in the previous year, there were initially a striking number of snails in the Free State. "It was relatively humid in the spring, and since snails love wet weather, there were very, very many snails," summarized Nelson. "If you grew lettuce, you didn't actually have a chance to eat it because the snails got on it right away."
In the past few weeks, however, many snails have died a miserable death. "They often dry up on the way because they can no longer get into a cool hiding place," said the LBV expert. However, this does not affect the prospects for the next gardening season. "They've probably all laid their eggs, so the next generation is already on the way for next year."
Although snails lay their eggs in different places depending on the species, they generally prefer moist, cool and dark places where the eggs are also protected from voracious birds. In order to protect their lettuce from being eroded next spring, gardeners can now remove the clutches or dry them out. But Nelson urgently warns against this, because such actions automatically catch the eggs of snails and highly desirable snail species.
"We need them with us, even the slugs eating our lettuce," explained Nelson. "The slugs are good scavengers, they eat carrion and excrement and thus also destroy bacteria." Other snails, such as Roman snails, also eat the clutches of slugs. "It's all a balance." For the same reason, never use slug pellets, Nelson warned. "Because then you catch everything again and destroy the whole balance."
