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Pests such as snails and slugs are, well, pests. They can wreak havoc on your home vegetable garden if you are not careful and do your due diligence in keeping them at bay. Do snails urinate in plants?

They do not, only in freshwater, though. But, snails affect just about everything you can grow in your home vegetable garden.

You may find a snail or slug during the day, but most likely you will find them at night eating away. They are nocturnal creatures, so dust off that flashlight because you are going to need it.

They could literally eat or destroy all of the vegetables in your garden before you get a chance to sink your teeth into one of those juicy tomatoes.

If you don’t want your plants to become a victim and want to stay ahead of the game here are some things you can do to repel slugs and snails from your home vegetable garden:

• When the sun goes down, the snails and slugs come out to eat and that is exactly the time you should be hitting your garden with a flashlight and some table salt. Snails and slugs are slimy and must remain moist in order to stay alive.

• When you see one in the garden, pour some table salt on them and watch them shrivel up. Three to four sprinkles may be all you will need for smaller snails, use more on the larger ones.

• The next thing you can do is fill a coffee can with soapy water, hit your garden at night with your trusty flashlight and pick them up by hand and drop them into the can. The soapy water will kill them.

• If you are using raised beds for your garden, you can tack on some strips or pieces of copper on the outside. The copper will serve the snails and slugs an electric shock, deterring them from entering your raised bed garden.

• Toads like cool, wet or damp areas, so you can make a nice corner in your garden to attract one or add one that you can buy from a pet store. As long as conditions are optimal for toad existence, they will not only stay where they are but return every year.

• Another natural way to repel snails and various pests is through the use of garlic spray. Garlic spray repels insects such as aphids, spider mites, and flies. There will be a strong garlic odor at first, but that odor dissipates shortly.

• The use of hot pepper wax which is made a number of ways but all have the ingredient, capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot peppers, helps deter pests because they do not like spicy things.

Your plants won’t absorb the spray or the capsaicin, just remember to wash off your vegetables prior to preparing them.