A super year for snails!

[goosey]

With all the comments on "less than usual" butterflies, moths and birds in the garden this year I can report a bumper year for snails . I have never seen so many in the garden, there were hundreds last night all over the tiny yard, all around the edges of bird baths and water features and they were still coming over the top of the yard wall in vast numbers. It was awful, I couldn't walk anywhere with out that sickening crunch. I was surprised to see I had any plants left this morning - they seem untouched. Where have all these snails come from

[Paul mabbott]

Well a wet but not cold year gives them ideal conditions for growth and the wet weather also encourages plants to grow so that snails and slugs are not short of food. Wet weather is bad for most invertebrates because their immobile phases can't escape flood and are likely to rot while the mobile phases cannot get around searching for food (or they get washed away) - molluscs, on the other hand, have eggs that can survive in very wet conditions and the adults just hang on to whatever is around ...
My attempts at growing crops have been absolute failures this year - either nothing has grown (through lack of sun) or it has been eaten by slugs/snails ....

Originally Posted by goosey

With all the comments on "less than usual" butterflies, moths and birds in the garden this year I can report a bumper year for snails . I have never seen so many in the garden, there were hundreds last night all over the tiny yard, all around the edges of bird baths and water features and they were still coming over the top of the yard wall in vast numbers. It was awful, I couldn't walk anywhere with out that sickening crunch. I was surprised to see I had any plants left this morning - they seem untouched. Where have all these snails come from

[goosey]

Thanks Paul, It's to get such informative answers back. I am not kidding they gave me such a turn, just the sheer numbers - I have never seen anything like it! Sorry to hear about your crops though, it has been another strange year where the weather is concerned.

[agrumpycow]

We've had a rainbow of different colour slugs and snails for the last few weeks. One one night last week I counted 30 on one of the steps alone going up to the lawn.
Like Paul they have made short work of my lettuce and other veg and with tomato blight as well I'm left with not a lot!

[paulchandler6]

You are not kidding when you say a super year for Snails! Also Slugs. Between them they have decimated our vegetable patch. I cant remember seeing so many slugs before. Cheers