Slugs Slugs Slugs

Slugs. They never used to bother me before. They also never used to eat my plants down to nothing in  a matter of days either. I knew we would have a bug problem this year, but my goodness!! Do slugs even count as bugs? This morning, just on opening the back door, I counted no less than twenty of the slimey little beasts just on the plastic deck chairs. For the past couple of days, while we researched what to do about them, Andrew and I have spent each morning and evening (I get a.m. he gets p.m., which seems to me like I got the worst end of the deal there) combing the garden picking them off the plants. They are particularly fond of the pepper plants. From the reading Andrew did this is what we've come up with: A circle of sand around the plants, supposedly they won't crawl over the sand...cornmeal...supposedly they will eat it and their stomachs will explode....and beer...supposedly they will drown themselves in booze....we'll see what works. At least this year, we are not alone in our misery. Chicken neighbor has them bad too. He doesn't treat his yard either.