The Pantry Essential That Will Have Slugs And Snails Scurrying From Your Garden

Imagine this: You walk into your garden to harvest some lettuce leaves and suddenly realize that they're covered with silvery mucus and are riddled with holes. Ugh! The slugs and snails are at it again. In moments like this, you might feel like despairing, but thankfully there is a quick, simple, and affordable way to prevent these gastropods from destroying your plants: baiting them with bread dough.

After running several trials in Oregon, Montana, and Hawaii, research scientists at Oregon State University Extension Service found that snails and slugs crave fermenting bread dough (the typical flour, yeast, and water mixture). Even when offered other yeasty items like Marmite and beer (which forms the bait in another easy slug trap), they still went after the dough. Lush plants like strawberries, tomatoes, and lettuce couldn't sidetrack them either, making bread dough the ideal bait to lure these pests away from your leafy greens.

Although the exact reasons are unclear, it's believed that chemicals released by the dough attract gastropods. So strong is the attraction that during one experiment, scientists caught 18,000 snails in 60 traps over only two days. So, how can you use bread dough to get rid of slugs and snails in your garden? Let's find out.

To make a simple bread dough all you have to do is mix 1 cup each of flour and water together in a container along with a tablespoon of yeast. Allow the concoction to ferment for a few hours then, after digging a shallow hole, place the trap flush or slightly above soil level and pack the surrounding area with dirt. (The traps should be near the crops you want to protect.) The slugs and snails will fall in and should remain in the container. This method will not kill the gastropods. You'll have to pluck the pests off the dough and dispatch them yourself, either by squashing them or drowning them in soapy water. 

Another option is to build a slurry trap. For that, repurpose yogurt containers (or any old food-safe item with steep sides) and follow the above recipe, but increase the amount of water you use to at least 2 cups. This should ensure that the mixture is liquid enough for the pests to drown in. The mixture will begin to smell after a couple of days. At this point, just dump the contents onto your compost heap and fill the container with a new slurry mixture.

Apart from being cheaper than other slug baits (including beer), bread dough offers the added advantage of having a longer lifespan. The dough will remain effective for around eight days (although the slurry will begin to smell long before that). Unlike some commercial slug-control products, the bread dough is also quite weatherproof; it can be exposed to rain with no issues. To make the traps as effective as possible, be sure to place your bait on cloudy days, either in the early mornings or late in the evening when slugs and snails are most active. 

If you are concerned that these traps will simply attract more pests into your garden, don't worry — slugs can only smell the fermenting dough from about 3 feet away. This means that the chances of your traps attracting more pests is minimal. However, one thing to keep in mind is that raw bread dough is toxic for many animals, including cats and dogs. If you have pets, you should be sure to pet-proof your traps to prevent them from eating any dough. You can do this by placing a lid over the traps and only cutting holes that, while big enough to allow slugs through, are not large enough for your pets to make use of.