To Beer or Not to Beer

We think we may have slugs. I have no idea how you can actually tell what kind of things are chewing hole in your plants, so we are guessing. We have many friends, and websites tell us that the way to get rid of the slugs is to put out some beer in cups. Apparently the slugs enjoy beer, so they crawl in the cups and die. GREAT! So we stopped at the convenience store on our way and picked up a large (cheap) beer. The lady behind the desk even gave us 2 cups when we told her what we were doing. We were excited to get rid of a garden nuisance.

We pulled up to the community garden and realized that the space is also shared by a school, and every few feet they had placed a sign indicating that we were in a school zone, and that there would be harsh penalties for any drug activity. It was 2:15 in the afternoon, school was about to get out, there were a lot of people around, so we decided not to risk it.

We went home and did a little more research, and found some evidence that slugs do not like sand. Apparently the sand cuts up their bellies and they die. Sad, yes, but not as sad devoting all of this time and money into a garden only to have critters eat all of our food.  So we circled the most edible plants with sand, and we wil now hope for the best...

The second sand circle is where there used to be another head of lettuce (pre sand). What are the chances that the entire head was eaten by a slug? Any ideas about what might have take that away?