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Shea Simmons is the Assignments Editor at LifeSavvy. Previously, she worked as a freelance writer with a focus on beauty and lifestyle content. Her work has appeared in Bustle, Allure, and Hello Giggles. Read more...

Maintaining a garden can be a worthwhile and fulfilling endeavor. However, it’s not without its troubles, and pests are one of them. One of the most frustrating? Snails.

Thankfully, copper is all you need to deter snails from your veggies and flowers.

While you’ve likely heard the old wives’ tale that salt and beer work to kill these slimy creatures, those methods can often be considered inhuman. Sure, that’s not important to everyone. However, if you don’t want to slowly dry out a slug using salt, copper can keep them away without killing them.

When a slug touches copper, it creates an electrical shock that slugs obviously find unpleasant. Wrapping your planters, raised beds, and pots in copper tape can then help keep the slimy pests away without harming or killing them.

Tape forms make it easier to add.

This might seem a bit far-fetched, but there’s research to back it up.

A 2019 study done at the University of Hawaiˋi at Mānoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources found that copper tape was the most effective barrier method is slug deterrent practices. While the study did not look at methods that killed the slugs, if your aim is to simply keep them away and not harm them, copper is the way to go.

The study does note, though, that it specifically tested copper tape that was two inches wide. While the researchers used tape that measured up to five inches, two were sufficient.

If you’ve been struggling to keep pests out of your garden, you might want to consider grabbing some copper tape.

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