Preventing Slugs and Snails From Consuming Lettuce

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Lettuce protection from slugs and snails

Slugs and snails can easily get trapped in our lettuce leaves, thus, surprising us with their whereabouts.

About Slugs and Snails

They will eat holes in the produce and leave feces. They are very active in cool, wet weather, but can be found all spring and summer long. Their activity levels can come and go with the weather conditions.

For example, they can be very active on mild, wet days. They can be somewhat active on cloudy days too. On warm, sunny days, they will slow down. However, if the weather goes from a sunny day to instant bad, cool, rainy weather, they can get quite a ‘giddy up’ in their stride very quickly.

Lettuce and slugs(and snails) can often occur in the spring if we do not safeguard our lettuce plants. Luckily, we can easily protect them from slugs and snails, which are often the worse enemy anywhere they can be found.

Defending Lettuce Against Slugs and Snails

When defending against these critters, a few things things work out well. First of all, plants higher off the ground are always better off than ground dwellers. However, this does not mean they won’t climb. It just means they are more likely to stop when they find a preferred meal.

In addition to planting higher up, we can use a durable landscape fabric which helps deter the crawlers and makes them easier to find for the ones that do attempt to crawl on the ground mat.

Besides those two things, we can plant decoy plants in the bottom pots of a vertical garden and use a ring of copper tape around our support pipe.

Lettuce protected from slugs and snails
Lettuce growing next to Red Aztec Spinach. Lettuce is protected from slugs and snails. There is landscape fabric and a ring of copper tape just below the bottom pot which are supported vertically.

So, there we are. We can comfortably grow our lettuce without the worry of slugs and snails eating our food for us.

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