How can I make the snails in my yard useful? I know it's a long shot, but I figured the MG team would think of something, if anyone could. I'm sick of killing them. Can I move them to my compost pile? We do a shallow compost pit that has attracted all sorts of worms. Our red worms were there first, now there are all sorts of worms.
I assume you have the European Garden snail since most of our native snails are generally few in number and relatively well-behaved in gardens. The European Garden snail (aka Brown snail) was brought in by people who wanted to "ranch" snails for escargot dinners in fancy restaurants. But they couldn't keep them down on the farm after they left Paris.
But, back to your question, you can eat them and if you like them a lot, grow more garlic to season them and eat even more of them (invite your friends , too!).
I suppose you could put them in a compost bin with lots of vegetable scraps but I don't know if feeding them would only add to your problems long-term and they will escape the bin. It isn't something I would do. Other than that, they are managed like slugs. Check out this article:
