Micro-slugs? Count your blessings.

Around here, 'micro' is any slug under 5cm; 8-10cm is the norm.

Thanks to the voracious blighters, I cannot grow salad greens or leafy herbs in anything other than raised pots or my terraced stone wall. I've tried every remedy in the book, from beer to copper to caffein - the slugs just laugh at me.

But, don't despair - you can grow a wonderful salad garden in pots. I have several medium and large sized planters that are perfect for salad greens - and if you vary the times you sow the seeds you can have fresh greens all season long.

(I like salad sprouts as well as the mature greens, so I over-sow and then thin out the young sprouts, meaning you get two crops in one pot - sprouts within a few weeks, and the greens later.)

I'm trying an experiment this year with my root veggies - I've put a raised bed in the center (the bed is made of porphyr stone - a simple DIY job), surrounded by cranesbill, one of my slug-resistant successes. The idea is that the cranesbill will provide a pretty border throughout the summer, and hopefully discourage the slugs from crossing and climbing up the beds. Hopefully being the operative word.

It's an eternal battle, man vs. slug...

Well I try to remember that without slugs, snails and flies, we wouldn't have our wonderful birds. I take preventative action but always ecologically as I do not want to poison birds or hedgehogs - and the copper tape on the raised beds is brilliant.