Lettuce

[hubballi]

I have planted lettuce outside in a small raised bed. I have surrounded each plant with a barrier made of plastic water bottles cut in half as well as organic slug pellets. Up to now this has worked but suddenly the lettuces have been ravaged badly and the pellets all gone. I think the pellets kill them a while after they eat them which means they are useless as they then go on to eat the crop. I don't like the other pellets that make them slime everywhere. They seem to wait until you are about to pick the fully grown plant and then strike. Same with courgettes in pots. They left them a long time and now they are doing well they decide to have a go.

This is very disheartening as I end up getting beaten by them every year, no matter what efforts I make.

I have tried:

Nematodes

Beer Traps

Putting them in the compost bin.

Pellets.

Plastic bottles.

Eggshells

Standing plant pot in moat of water with salt added.

Vaseline round the pots.

And still they win.

[malcolmx]

it is likely these are keel slugs that live in the earth and come out at night all you preparations are designed to keep out slugs from the top not underneath . i am not an organic gardener so i water my soil with a slug killer (not the plants ) and i use normal slug pellets
a very sandy soil helps as does using extra ji in compost

i would be organic if i could get good crops that way but on a small garden scale i want as much as i can get from my plot and i find i loose too much being organic