A Mollusk Proposal
What’s slow and slimy, carries its home wherever it goes, and is one of the most unwelcome visitors for gardeners and orchardists across nearly all Zones?
If your mind conjured up the whorled, golden-brown shell pattern of the common garden snail, you’re correct, and likely among the many growers who annually ponder how to rid their plots of this damaging pest. The common garden snail (Cornu aspersum) makes a home outside its shell among a wide range of host plants, including numerous fruit trees, vegetable crops, garden flowers, rosebushes, and rotting scraps.
Rather than spend his time expelling snails from his property, one Washington farmer has spent the past decade perfecting the conditions under which thrive so he can cultivate them for culinary use. Ric Brewer is the owneroperator of Little Gray Farms, one of the only , or “snaileries,” approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). On his property near the Olympic Mountains, Brewer works in the vanguard of this country’s snail cultivation, supplying a
