SLUGS

It seems the slugs modify my behavior as the IRS modifies my filing.  Take the eggplants - I grew them in pots last year and don't remember a slug problem but this year, with them in the ground, I have had to add eggplant to my vigil.  Also the eggplants want to slouch so perhaps a tomato cage for each next year and better spacing so I can see the slugs and the fruit too.  Grow less. That is becoming the mantra for next year.  The brassicas - even those in large pots suffer but not so bad as the cabbages that offer hiding places for slugs on the ground.  Again, grow less. Slugs like beer but not as much as they like brassicas.  I will have to attend to the edges of the garden better so what is outside in the wilder areas won't be so willing to enter. I have noticed that they don't like rough wood chips so I can edge the garden with those over cardboard or why not weed mat like the kind at our local hardware store or home depot.  The beer should be put between the wilder areas and the brassicas so they smell the beer first.  Putting it by the brassicas doesn't work as the ignore it.  My ammonia bottle goes everywhere with me - better than handling the slimy blobs.  One cup of ammonia to a gallon jug filled with water sits on the porch to refill my quart bottle.  Maybe the brassicas will have to be grown so there is space between them and that means a lot less plants.  Cabbages take so much room if they are grown without overlapping but it may be worth it.  Sluggo claims that there were taste tests done and I am convinced that brassica leaves were not used in that test.  I have spread it liberally just to see slugs happily munching away while the sluggo went untouched.  I have started pre treating an area with beer before planting so there are less slugs in an area when a seedling goes out.  If I see a lot of slugs on a rainy night and less the next night it just means they are not hungry and the weather is not ideal.  I don't believe mulch nets more slugs as I have seen unmulched cabbages with more damage than my own. Last year I found them hiding in groups in cracks in the ground - it was a drought.  I also think there is some sort of social behavior going on - they sleep in groups and sometimes I will find a lot of them on a single species and none on something they were on the night before.  Pre dinner strategy meetings?