I cut the bottoms off soda bottles in order to have lots of small, inconspicuous saucers. But the smell of beer will also attract slugs from many feet away!
Slugs are NOT beer connoisseurs - they like cheap and stale beer better than good fresh beer. Or make your own "slug beer":
- - 2 cups warm water,
- - 1 pkg. dry yeast,
- - 1 teaspoon sugar, (or more)
- - 1 teaspoon salt , (or less)
You can also scatter the "iron phosphate" kind of slug bait, "Sluggo" or Sluggo Plus.
You don't need to scatter more than 5-6 grains per square foot. They are attracted to the bait and will find it. But you might want to make a complete circle around your bed, a foot or more wide. They eat it and then die or get sick later, but will eat some leaves in the meanwwhile. Allegedly, they learn to avoid areas where eating makes them get sick, so in the long run it might be more of a deterrent than a slug-eliminator.
The iron phosphate variety only contains iron and phosphate (fertilizers) plus EDTA. EDTA is a manufactured chemical, but so non-toxic that it's used as a human food additive (iron supplement) and as a medicine (protects against heavy metal poisoning).
You might want to avoid the more toxic, more effective "metaldehyde" variety of slug bait. Metaldehyde can be toxic to small pets - seriously harmful or even lethal if they get into the box and eat a handful. A little of this stuff kills slugs promptly, so that you see their slime trails get twisted and then terminate in a dead slug.
