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.