The WD40 sounds an interesting idea Pat though Chloe is such a nosey little madam she would be sure to get covered in it

I tried beer traps, the problem is you need to put them all over the garden because slugs tend to stick to their own territory. According to recent research they will even return if you move them.
I never use slug pellets, Chloe would eat them and I have a hedgehog and frogs in my garden and I used to have a tortoise too (he went to someone in Hastings with a female when he tried to mate the rockery stones).

My garden is organic and with the shortage of bees and hover flies I am reluctant to use any kind of chemicals.

I struggle to find any big slugs now having collected them all up over the last couple of years and put them in the bin , only the tiny little grey ones remain.

The copper strips didnt work for me. Wee beggars slimed their way all up & down & across it

By far the best ive found is salt. Go out after dark with a torch & sprinkle them with salt. Like Mini says she used to get loads, now words got out we dont get that many! Sprinkle salt all around base of your pots & back door. They were even getting into our conservatory/ utility room!

Salt is very cheap from Likes tescoa, asdas & sainsburys & very effective.

Salt is also great for the nuisance weeds growing in the cracks of brick paving!!!

Yes salt works but ... oh eeeeyukkkk ... have you seen the disgusting slime puddles you are left with afterwards? I came to the conclusion I preferred the live sluggy things lol! And only seems to work if you sprinkle it on them - might as well pick them up.

And careful where you put the salt - it will kill a lot of plants. I found this out one day when I'd made a big load of salt dough for the kids to play with in the garden. They were chucking bits of it in the beds and it killed everything it landed by. If I'd known that then I would have gone round picking it up - it sort of dissolved around them and ruined my herbaceous border!

Just grow things they don't like and they will go elsewhere

Thanks ladies for all the suggestions.

Thanks for the reply and suggestions. I've actually ordered some copper collars from our local garden centre as they'd sold out .... so maybe they do work
I daren't put beer out as I'm sure my dogs would drink it and probably eat the snail too.
Pat - I'll also squirt WD40 on the pots as well as have copper collars - if the snails get passed that lot they deserve a nibble of plant.

At the moment I've left the Hosters on our teak table outside. There is one bite out of a leaf but that was Rucksack as I witness him doing it and retrieved it from his mouth

Jenny you know I mentioned making a 'frill ' to put around the inside of the pots on the same principle as the plastic bottles?

Should you consider this I found the ideal material , Wilco do thin green plastic lawn edging which can be cut into the right lengths/frilled and bent and would not look too bad in pots in the evening The slugs can't get around the bend and frill.
http://www.wilko.com/search?q=lawn+e...rchsubmit.y=14

That looks brilliant and well worth getting some. I would never use slug pellets as they are lethal to animals. Also anything edible like salt, beer my dogs would definitely eat/drink. I really wish I hadn't bought these two hosters now as there wasn't a problem before I did look at your last links and tried to make one out of a 6 pint milk carton, but the plastic was too stiff and moulded. Last night I went out and collected about 30 snails and gently put them over the fence I wouldn't feel comfortable killing them. Thanks again, once I've sorted it I'll post a photo.

Oh dear Jenny do you realize they may come back . There was a project about this recently...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...discovers.html

That isn't good reading What I'll have to do is collect them in a bucket and walk them to the field opposite - I can't believe they'll attempt to come back from there as its a good 150 metres and across a road There is the river literally next to us but I just cannot bring myself to kill anything

Thanks Mini I'm going to the garden centre and see if the copper tape is in and then buy some of the plastic lawn edging which I'm sure I've seen there .