You're squeamish about the effect of some of the slug and snail killers on the market? Get a hedgehog. That, a friend who has had experience of quite a few gardens, swears, is the complete answer. He was lucky enough in the garden of his first house. It was an old garden with stone walls which leaked snails in torrents, he says. Those were the days when soot was recommended as a protection. Then the soot got wet and was no good. But one night he heard a strange crunching and grunting from below the bedroom window. He went down and there was a hedgehog munching away at snail after snail.
Came the winter and the hedgehog presumably buried himself in a bed of leaves or a half-made compost heap. They never saw him (or her) again. Now, of course, you have to have a well enclosed garden, and if you have a dog there might be complications, but our friend says he never had such comfort on the gastropod front. Why didn't he get a hedgehog in later gardens? Well, none of them were enclosed in the same way and the hedgie could have just rambled off.
There is no doubt but that this has been a royal slug and snail season. There was the man, of course, who found a use for them. He fed them to the badgers on the front lawn. But by and large, if you shy away from chemical deterrents, and the best protection is a good circle of sharp sand around your most precious beds or plants. Very few will get through that. After heavy rain, when it sinks in or becomes splashed with mud, you may have to renew it, but generally not. And, of course, keep clearing up fallen leaves and flower petals under which they might hide.
A learned book says that a snail will lay up to 60 eggs. One deposit examined recently in a pot of compost containing some frail tree seedlings, was carefully taken out of the two-inch deep, thumb-wide hole made by the depositor just after laying, with a teaspoon and equally carefully counted. There were 78 milky-white, soft to the touch and didn't break under gentle pressure. Rubbery, perhaps, describes them.
Helix aspersa is the common garden snail. "Few low-growing plants escape the attentions of this abundant pest" we read in Collins Garden Wildlife, and on a more jolly note: "Mating pairs are not uncommonly seen early in the morning with their white genitalia still locked together." How to get a hedgehog? Believe it or not, in these daft times, you need a licence. Just pray one will come along.