Plants that repel and/or resist to slugs and snails

To create a vegetable garden that is resistant and resilient in the face of seasonal slug attacks, it is essential to choose vegetable plants that are unattractive to gastropods.

What are they? What about aromatic plants? Are they repellent? What role can they play? How do you protect slug-susceptible plants?

In this article, I try to answer these questions, starting with a list of 17 slug-resistant vegetable plants, followed by a list of 13 aromatic herbs that are also little appreciated by gastropods, some of which have a repellent effect.

But beforegoing any furtherI suggest you read the thumbnail article below. Then return to this one.

I. As a preventive measure, create a slug- and snail-resistant vegetable garden.

I’ve been writing about slug prevention methods in the garden for a few articles now.

I believe that, in any approach or project, the assessment and prevention of potential risks must take precedence over any progress. This is the case for the vegetable garden of our dreams, but it’s also the case in every sphere of our society today, which is, I think, often too driven by strong, thoughtless innovation. Whether we’re talking about the massive use of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution, or the intensive cultivation of salad greens on bare soil, the lack of risk prevention can be the downfall of every project.

Prevention means planning, preparation and design, integrating all the less desirable aspects of the environment. Prevention is also a way of avoiding stress, or even despondency, when faced with something we’ve refused to take into account. Prevention is the best way to be ready and to bounce back.

It all sounds a bit silly, but we’re only talking about a garden here… But for many, this garden also means a countless number of hours spent mulching, sowing, watering, transplanting, watering… So when everything is razed to the ground in two days by slugs, following a storm, we can understand the despair some people feel.

This prevention, while it may involve surface composting or the creation of a sacrificial
creating a sacrificial bed
I think it also means selecting plants that are naturally undesirable to slugs and snails. I’m talking the most fragile vegetable plants. But it’s also important to know which plants are the most resistant!

That’s what I’m presenting in this article, by a review of the vegetables and plants that slugs and snails don’t eat as a priority, including repellent stinging plantsThey are the most resistant to slugs and snails (where “resistance” is not taken to mean “survival of the plant despite heavy damage”, but rather “low damage compared with other plants in the garden”).

First of all, as already mentioned in other articles on the importance of plant selection, some plants have naturally developed a resistance to gastropods that makes them more or less repellent.

Because of their bitterness, hairy or fleshy leaves, the presence of hairs or prickles, or the scent they give off, these plants are usually avoided by slugs.

If, however, there are a lot of them, and little food is available in your garden (hence the importance of keeping what are unfairly called “weeds”, some of which have appetizing leaves), then slugs may still fall back on these plants.

But let’s see what these resistant plants are:

II. Slug-resistant vegetables and plants (which slugs don’t like to eat)

You’ll notice that some are fairly obvious (garlic and onion, for example), but others much less so (lamb’s lettuce and arugula, for example, whose taste they wouldn’t appreciate).

As digesters of organic matter, slugs and snails prefer to feed on young, fragile or diseased plants. The resistance of these plants will therefore also depend very much on their stage of development, as well as their location.

III. Slug-resistant aromatic plants

Once you’ve selected what to serve with your dishes, you’ll need seasoning, of course! The flavors of the south, the taste of the garrigue, the salvation of your dishes in sauces… I named aromatic plants!

In fact Most aromatic plants are not eaten by slugs because of their strong fragrance or taste, except for basil, which they love, and young parsley, lemon verbena and marjoram, which they tend to nibble on from time to time.

Here is a list of aromatic plants that will resist the onslaught of slugs:

IV. Slug-repellent plants?

Some of the vegetables and herbs on these lists even repel slugs. This may be due to the scent they give off (slugs are very scent-sensitive).

Here are some of the plants known to be repellent:

• Garlic
• Wild garlic
• Fennel
• Borage
• Mint
• Rosemary
• Thyme
• Ginger
• Chives
• Comfrey
• Chervil
• Common wormwood (thanks to Antoine in the comments, who has seen an apparently significant repellent effect in his home)

Their repellent effect can be used to protect other, less resistant plants by planting them nearby.

Note: according to a survey carried out on our
perma “pest” management group
only borage seems to have a truly marked repellent effect.

V. How to protect slug-susceptible plants

If you still want to grow plants that are rather sensitive to slugs (because you can’t imagine doing without salad greens, for example), there are a number of things you can do to limit damage to them.

You can choose to grow old varieties, or to select, year after year, the seeds of the most resistant individuals (this is what I detail here on the subject of selected plants loved by slugs). You’ll need to do the same for your ornamental plants and flowers.

You can set up several preventive actions, such as surface composting or the creation of a sacrificial bed, as already mentioned.

You can redesign your garden to resolve a systemic imbalance, of which an overpopulation of slugs is just one symptom. Hervé Coves teaches us, for example, the importance of promoting soil life for effective slug management in a permaculture garden. Whether it’s to encourage the presence of the fungi that slugs love (and which help break down organic matter), or to help their natural predators settle in.

This last point is crucial to the natural regulation of gastropods within the garden system. Attracting carabid beetles, staphylins, toads, hedgehogs, orvets and birds of all kinds can only help accelerate this long-term regulation. For this, and in the general case, it will be necessary to favor unmowed grasses, hedges, as well as the numerous hiding places and shelters that dot the garden (piles of wood, piles of stones, mounds of branches, flat stones, old stone walls, …), but above all, never use phytosanitary products… But this goes without saying in permaculture…

You can also set up protective barriers, or natural slug-proof mulches, to protect your plants from slugs and snails.

Natural anti-slug barriers, such as ash, eggshells, coffee grounds, animal hair… can, depending on the conditions, prove effective… but not always in the way they are thought to work, nor under all environmental conditions.

Even better! Follow scrupulously these 7 steps 👇

This is the action plan I devised following the findings of dozens of scientific studies on the subject.

I owe the success of my cabbages, salads, strawberries and cucurbits to it.

Click here to find out more:

Conclusion:

This article also focuses on preventing damage caused by gastropods.

Selecting vegetable plants and herbs that are naturally resistant to slugs and snails is, I believe, the basis for preventing this kind of problem.

At least, during the first few years of your garden’s life, which are often the most difficult with our gastropod friends. This gives your garden-system time to absorb the imbalance (self-regulate).

Aromatic plants are, as their name suggests, rich in fragrance. It can be very interesting to incorporate them into your vegetable garden, to help gently repel the majority of slug beetles.

Thank you for taking the time to read 😊, I hope this article has interested you and learned things you think will be useful. Don’t hesitate to let me know what you think in the comments. I’m always interested in what you have to say, as it can only enrich this document. Send me your ideas, and I’ll be happy to complete this article to make it as complete as possible.

Bibliography :

• To qualify this article: Reed, J. M., Paine, M. E., & Million, J. N. (2008). Slugs as Generalist Herbivores: Tests of Three Hypotheses on Plant Choices. Ecology, 89(11), 3138-3148.
• A source: https: //www.slughelp.com/vegetables-herbs-slugs-not-like-plants-resistant-slugs-snails/ – An excellent site, which I recommend to you

Other related articles:

Anti-slug plants

Plants popular with slugs

Natural anti-slug products