In defence of slugs. Slugs get a bad press among gardeners, undeservedly so. They're only doing what comes naturally and have a vital role to play in ecosystems. Slugs eat weak plants -the diseased, decaying and dying- and regurgitate them back into the soil system. The recent rains have bought them out in force and they're doing great work in assisting the decomposition of plant materials that comes with autumn.
 The main reason gardeners lose plants to slugs is that the plants they buy are too tender to resist them. The horticultural trade breeds pampered plants grown in polytunnels which are then planted in beds of bare earth thereby attracting the attention of the many thousands of slugs that will be found in any garden. A typical response is to dose the plant and its surroundings with chemicals. I find it truly disturbing to see the aisles stacked with poison in garden centres and homeware stores.
 Woods, hedgerows, meadows and other natural environs have at least as many slugs as gardens- are they stripped bare by slugs? Wild plants are tougher by far and proliferate in greater density. Many such species that are also bred as garden plants are weaklings by comparison to their relatives in the wild.
 Furthermore nature provides a counterbalance- slugs may be predators of plants but in turn they are preyed upon. Bill Mollison (the founder of Permaculture) once said "You don't have a slug problem, you have a duck deficiency."