The infamous garden thugs - slugs

It has to be said that professional and home gardeners alike are addicted to talking about these notorious garden pests and there are even entire books dedicated to slug-slaughtering strategies.

Slugs just love our damp Irish climate and the other bad news is that a slug can mate with itself if necessary, and both sexes can produce clusters of tiny pearl-like eggs.

In my experience, keeping Khaki Campbell ducks has been the most successful as these medium-sized, hardy, egg-laying ducks are ace slug and snail catchers and they’ll even go after slug eggs in the soil as well. However, ducks may also appreciate your salad greens so be warned, you’ll have to watch them and keep garden netting to the ready.