I SPENT a long time, and quite a lot of money, planting seedlings last year and the main outcome seems to have been little but a healthy, fat, slug population.

It was depressing to see new plants decimated in one or two nights.

I know I should grow more plants from seed, instead of doing the nursery run regularly, but it’s a level of dedication I’m not terribly good at.

Anyway, this year, I’m ready, with beer traps that will send the little blighters off to slug heaven happy.

However, slugs are a bit more interesting than you might think.

They have blue blood, or at least a grey colour, because whereas we have iron in our blood to carry oxygen, which creates the red colour, slugs use copper, which tums blue in contact with air.

Slugs have up to 8,000 teeth, arranged in a ribbon-like structure called a radula, chomping vegetation in a rasping motion. No wonder the petunias in my garden disappeared at a rate of knots.

There are 40 slug species in the UK and all have a single orifice just behind the head that serves as a breathing hole and a place to eject waste – that is, they poo out of their head.

Of the 40 types of slugs, the ash black slug, a forest dweller, can grow up to a foot long. No thanks, I do not need any.

The fastest mover (at a neck-snapping 17 metres per hour) is the tramp slug, clearly a speedy merchant.

I’m all for live and let live and recognise the role the slugs play in recycling vegetation. But if we can do a deal with the slugs to leave my seedlings alone that would be good - they can just sip the free beer I give them!