Question

I've got a small vegetable patch that the slugs absolutely love. As I'm keen to stay organic I don't want to use any pesticides, but at the same time I don't want all my veg being scoffed by slugs and snails.

What suggestions do you have for keeping them away?

Answer 1

Natural Slug Control
My favourite is the beer method...

Answer 2

Line salt boundaries around the patches. When the slugs try and crawl across them, the salt will stick to their pods and start sucking the life out of them. They may eventually die, but that line of salt is like your moat.

Answer 3

An ultrasonic cat repeller is a good investment.

When I moved into my current home, I had shrews living at the bottom of the garden, and toads in a patch of rough grass nearby. SOme local cat got industrious about killing them, leaving the corpses spread out on a flagstone for me to see. After that, I had to suffer a plague of slugs and snails for two years. I tried beer traps, but they had a minimal impression on my problem.

I have cultivated a small area of rough grass behind some shrubs for toads to live in (I've got a couple), and thrown some stones in a heap into rough land just over my fence, in hope of attracting slow worms.

Things are getting better, I have less slugs and snails. But I can definitely say that keeping cats away to start with is a good idea.

Answer 4

I found this on the River Cottage blog:

We are hoping in the next couple of days to start getting our own back by using the biological control Phasmarhabditis. This is a microscopic nematode that will prey upon the slugs and eat them from the inside (although this sounds rather macabre it is a very effective organic method for controlling slugs).

A bit of googling brought up this technical explanation and a site that sells them.