Slug Watch gets serious

At this time of year, when the plants are reaching puberty and you can hardly see the ground for foliage the slugs are definitely more active. I’ve only got a small patch and I check every night for about ten minutes or so, picking off what I find. Sometimes I find that it is the smallest slugs doing the most heinous damage, picking away at the small growth leaves on the runner beans. They are hardest to find. After I got back from Glastonbury there were quite a few slugs and snails to remove but following careful hoeing and regular picking there are fewer each night. Every night I go up there I usually found an amphibian roaming around but I wonder whether me going up there disturbs them for the whole evening or whether they quickly get on with it after I’ve gone. Would they do all the work if I didn’t go up. No, because many of the snails I find are already half way up the plants when I arrive and as far as I know frogs and toads don’t climb verticals. What I really need is a bank of Wallace and Grommit style infrared surveillance cameras. Then the transformation into obsession would be complete.