Slug pub

Ok, so I’ve always known that there are a lot of slugs and snails in my small, suburban garden. When I first moved to this house, there were 3 tubes of slug pellets left in the shed by the previous occupants, and this should have told me something. Then, I noticed a large hosta which had looked lovely had completely disappeared within 2 weeks of me moving in. Basically, all of those pellets were needed. Once they stopped being used, the plant just got devoured.

I’ve been trying to allow nature to reach a balance/be organic and to let them do their thing, but this year, since I’ve been studying, I thought I should try to grow a greater variety of plants and to limit the damage that they do.

Anyway, I set up a slug pub or beer trap last night and this is the slimy horror I found this morning:

I counted 75 of them. In one trap.

What worries me is the size of them – they are all quite small. I think that the larger slugs are able to have a nice drink and then go on to dinner.

I don’t know if I can carry on with this. I’m not sure I have the stomach to deal with this volume of slugs – I thought maybe 10 would be caught, but no. It’s like a slimy nightmare. The birds don’t seem to like beer marinated slugs either, so I don’t know how to dispose of them. If I carry on, will the numbers come down so that I can feel that some kind of control is being acheived? Or will it just stay like this and I’ll be forced to take drastic action and pave over the whole garden?