Snails And Slugs Pack Their Bags And Leave With Homeopathy

Gardeners can safely repel slugs and snails from their plants in no time at all with homeopathy.

Farmers ‘in-the-know’ use a simple homeopathic remedy called Helix tosta (toasted snail shell) to safely defeat the snails and slugs among their crops and report that after just one treatment, these pests avoid their plants for up to four months! Best of all, the slugs and snails will crawl past a juicy meal just to munch on an untreated plant further away. Not even heavy rain seems to reduce the effectiveness of the treatment.

While some farmers spray the remedy directly onto the plant, others have had equally good results by watering it into the soil above the roots. It’s as if the snails get the message to pack up their shells and leave – and that’s exactly what they do.

This is great news for those who are fed up with having their freshly planted seedlings nibbled to the ground - especially as Helix tosta is easy to use, available here in Australia and harmless to people and wildlife. This means no nasty burns if spilt on the skin or trips to the hospital if swallowed by a child. The energetic effect of Helix tosta disappears soon after use, leaving only a healthier and more resilient plant that is completely safe to eat.

What is Helix Tosta?

Helix tosta is the Latin name for a homeopathic remedy made from toasted snail shell. Homeopaths have used Helix tosta for more than a century for certain respiratory problems and tuberculosis, especially when the person is coughing up blood. The remedy has been used as a snail and slug repellent only in more recent times.

Make Your Own Snail Repellent Remedy

Helix tosta is available from the Homoeopathy Plus shop but for those who like a hands-on approach, it is an easy remedy to make. The following instructions will have you producing 100,000 litres of snail and slug repellent from just one small snail shell. Amazing! Never let it be said that homoeopathy is expensive or lacks efficiency.

Instructions:

1. First, catch your snail.
2. Drop it quickly into a pot of boiling water to ensure a quick death then remove its body from its shell. If this is a little grisly for you, find an empty shell from one that has hopefully died of old age after a full life.
3. Clean the shell well, place it into an electric oven or kiln, and roast it at 850°C until the shell turns into a white powder.
4. Triturate (grind) this powder with lactose (sugar of milk) to a 3X potency, at which time it will easily dissolve into a water-alcohol solution. Then, continue to potentise the remedy to a 6X potency (tutorials 3 and 4 explain how this is done).
5. You can either continue to use the total volume of the water-alcohol solution produced at each potency stage so you end up with your full 100,000 litres or, for more manageable quantities, just save and use 10% of the liquid from each stage to produce the next potency.
6. For small gardens, add 10 ml of the 6X stock liquid to 10 litres of water and water into the ground or on the plants. A whole hectare can be treated by adding 500 ml of the 6X stock liquid to 500 litres of water.
7. If for some strange reason you want even larger stock amounts simply start with more snail shells.

Another Option

Does all this sound too fiddly? No problem. Helix tosta is now available from the Homoeopathy Plus shop in vials of stronger-acting 6C pills. One vial of 100 pills will make up 20 litres of slug and snail repellent. Just add one pill to 200 ml of water, shake vigorously, and then spray or water your plants. Easy!

Does it Really Work?

When we first received our Helix tosta remedy we too wanted to see if it worked. Not a single snail or slug could be found around Fran Sheffield’s garden (must be those kookaburras) so it fell to Michelle Keats, another Homoeopathy Plus practitioner, to trial it on her snail infested rhubarb. This is what happened:

“When I was first asked to do this I thought, what a crazy idea! But I dropped a pill into a bottle of water and sprayed my rhubarb where the snails normally thrive, and waited to see what would happen. The next morning there was not a snail to be seen …. until I turned the leaves over. They had all clustered on the undersides. I sprayed the leaves again but this time, on both sides. Since then it truly has been a case of, ‘not a snail to be seen’. I have checked the rhubarb day and night and it remains completely snail free. Some have parked themselves on the wall beside my garden but none have ventured onto the plants.

I am seriously impressed. I’ve been told that this effect will last a few months, even if it rains, but I guess that is something I will have to wait and see.

Next time I am going to try watering the roots instead of spraying the leaves.”

(You can see the snail-eaten leaves of the rhubarb in this photograph sent to us by Michelle.)

After getting this report from Michelle, we are keen to know what takes place when others use the remedy, so if you decide to give Helix tosta a go we would love to hear what happens to your snails! Everyone who orders a vial during November and December (’09) will be asked to complete a quick and easy 3-question survey:

1. Did you use the remedy on plants troubled by snails or slugs?
2. Did you spray the remedy on the leaves of the plant or water it into the soil around the roots?
3. Was the remedy successful?

There are two ways to order your Helix tosta remedy – either purchase it alone ($15.00) from the Homoeopathy Plus shop OR receive it free of charge with any other order (excluding books) placed during the month of November. A couple of weeks after your purchase, we will email you the survey that should take no more than one minute to answer. Please take the time to fill it out as we would really like to know what happened in your garden!

Why Use Helix Tosta?

Because it is cheap and because it is safe.

As we have already discussed, for a small amount of electricity and preserving alcohol (we suggest vodka), trailer-loads of Helix tosta can be prepared from just one small snail shell. If you would rather save your time and effort though, the pills can now be purchased for a fraction of the cost of other snail killers and deterrents from the our shop.

Helix tosta is also safe. Unlike many other products, Helix tosta has no toxic ingredients to harm you, your plants or pets, wildlife or the environment.

How Does it Work?

Certainly not by chemicals. When correctly chosen, homeopathic remedies stimulate an energetic response from either humans, animals, or plants that improves their resistance to pathogens and disease. This is exactly what happens when Helix tosta is used for deterring snails and slugs. Just like us, plants in less than perfect health are attacked by parasites and disease. When a plant is strengthened by the needed homeopathic remedy (ie. Helix tosta in this instance) it is less attractive to slugs and snails - they either die out or move to greener pastures.

More than Snails

Homeopathy can be used with all living things. While many people know it treats human health problems, and some know that it treats animals, only a few know that it works just as well with plants for their pests or diseases.

Useful though this knowledge is, agrohomeopathy, homeopathy for plants, is much more than just getting rid of snails and slugs. It is used around the world to treat all manner of plant diseases, repel pests, improve soil productivity and increase crop yield – and all in an environmentally safe and supportive manner.

In coming months we will be running a series of articles in the Homeopathy Plus enewsletter on how the home gardener or farmer can use homeopathy to get the best out of their soil and plants. The first to run will be an interview with Vaikunthanath Das Kaviraj, one of the foremost practitioners and educators from the agrohomeopathy movement.

The Kaviraj Interview

Kaviraj first discovered homeopathy in 1979 when he was seriously ill with dysentery in India. He says, “…after 11 weeks of it and nearly dying, homeopathy fixed me in less than 3 days”. He then began his homeopathic studies but his work with plants didn’t begin until in Switzerland in 1986 when his friend suggested he try treating some apple trees that had developed a virulent bright red rust. To everyone’s surprise, homeopathic Belladonna cleared the rust and left a much better-tasting apple than the trees had produced prior to then.

This experience inspired years of research in countries as far afield as Australia, Europe, and Asia. Read what Kaviraj has discovered about the effects of homeopathy with plants in The Kaviraj Interview in our next newsletter – it’s an interview not to be missed.