Nematodes work very well but you have to gauge the time just right. I used them one year but like @Posy. Ours is three quarter acre so it works out far too expensive.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
I've found countless slugs lurking on the underside of leaves whilst clearing them @Fire. It certainly won't do any harm if you're trying to reduce the population.
I cleared out leaves today and found slugs and tiny snails all over them. If I had a larger garden and less of a mollusc problem, I would leave the leaves for all sorts of good reasons.
Nematodes work on slugs but not snails, as they live above ground. Some hosta growers say, that garlic spray works but you have to re-apply it very frequently. Copper tape helps with pots so long as the foliage does not touch anything that can act as a bridge. I agree with others in general tho, you have to live with them.
I don't have much of a problem with them as I try not to grow anything in the ground that they want to eat. It's much easier to protect the odd vulnerable plants in containers. I check and snip daily . If I spot damage, I find and despatch the perpetrator. If something turns out to be particularly vulnerable, I let it go. Life's too short.
BTW @Fire, I think if you check what Charles Dowding says, it's raised bed edging, you don't want he is not against beds in fact he promotes them . He starts beds off with a frame, wooden boards etc,. Once the bed is established, he removes the frame and just mounds soil up. He feels the board edging just provides a shelter for the pests to hide in , waiting to come and munch your crops!
I used some pieces of silver birch for bed edging, years ago, then the tree came down in my garden. Today I took the pieces up, and the under sides were coated in a wide variety of slugs. Interesting fungi grow on it, but given how infested the garden is by molluscs, I don't think large amounts of rotting wood is a great idea for my garden, though I do, of course, appreciate their essential roles in breaking down plant matter.
It feels very odd to think of taking up wood piles.
I think with less damp wood there will be less slugs breeding.
They like dense undergrowth too and are less keen on open ground. My hellebores and cyclamen def'ly do better without other plants near them. They get much less chewed.
It's shame, as creatures like frogs seem to like very similar conditions to slugs - the damp, the dark, thick cover, hidden away, undisturbed.
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I used them one year but like @Posy. Ours is three quarter acre so it works out far too expensive.