Perry's Blog

Two of the most serious problems in our garden are Bower Birds, who are voracious eaters, and Common Garden Snails, that can destroy a plant overnight. We've even found high-rise snails at the top of our tamarillos! And there are just so many of them

We have successfully used snail killer previously, but it goes against the grain as the amount we have to use means that our gardens seem covered in a carpet of poison.

So we've made a decision not to use Snail Poison any more. But having made that decision we've had to come up with another way to control our snails (unless we were happy to have a garden full of fat snails and nothing in the vegetable crisper).

And in the process I think we've come up with an innovative way to both control our snails and keep the Bower Birds off the garden...

Step One: Purchase some chicken food, although any absorbant substance that snails will eat will do.

Step Two: Purchase some good, cheap blue food colour.

Step Three: Mix the chook food (from step one) with the food colour.

Step Four: Take the resultant blue chook food and spread liberally around your garden.

What will happen is that the snails will eat the chook food, which will turn their shells blue.

The Bower Birds will take the turning blue snails back to decorate their bower, and once there, will have all the problems of keeping the nice blue snails from crawling away: effectively taking care of two problems at once.