I'm not sure what you mean by 'grit' Lucy. My soil is very sandy although it packs down and forms a crust unless I loosen it.
The challenge about diatomaceous earth is that it is a lot like asbestos...very bad on the lungs, so I don't feel comfortable putting that out. I have tried broken eggshells which are supposed to work the same way...but they aren't very effective. Sluggo knocks them back some but gets expensive when you have an acre of plants where the snails like to hide. I have not tried the beer traps...not sure I want to deal with cleaning up the mess. I have primarily been hand picking them and if it's just a few I stomp them...but when I'm picking 100-500 snails at a time I tie them up in a plastic bag and throw them in the trash. I have also been working on trimming some of the plants up off the ground so there aren't as many good hiding places. There is improvement..but it's slow. It is especially bad this year because the warm winter allowed them to continue to reproduce instead of knocking the population back to a dull roar. Oh well...it's always something...but that's ok. It's just a natural part of the gardening cycle.
