HOW do you cope with slugs?" is a regular query. "I don't," is the answer. "I let the birds do the job for me." There is hardly a garden without slugs and snails, so we must take cognisance of them. Where there is lots and lots of bird life - garden birds, not ducks and hens who would be much too destructive - a substantial element of the slug population can be kept under some control. That is my way and encouraging an abnormally high bird population by supplementary feeding all year round seems to work.
Organic gardeners have a variety of ruses, from dishes of beer to scooped out orange and grapefruit skins. These sort of tricks are time consuming so it will be a matter of priorities. The war-mongers scoff at such attempts to lure and then kill slugs on a daily basis and they happily lash out the chemical slug killers. Their trouble is other things get killed too, birds and even occasionally cats or small dogs. If the slugs ever become a serious menace, then I will simply drop certain items from their menu and that seems a sensible approach; so, out will go the hostas and delphiniums as wells as other dainty bites. Sad, but there are endless other plants to grow and countless opportunities to be explored.
Meantime, those who are not interested in my quaint rural ways must keep up a constant vigilance with their slug pellets.