Invasion of the Unknown

So, I had some Japanese raddishes growing (by request of my husband) and lettuce growing.  Oh and some red bells.  The red bell pepper plant was (foreshadowing here...notice the word "was") beautiful.  It was healthy and strong and growing tons of nicely shaped, store quality red bells that hadn't turned color yet. 

Until the day of the invasion. 

I checked on the garden beds and noticed there was a suspiciously empty patch in one of the areas.  I looked a bit closer and yep--all my lettuce was gone.  Completely full on gone.  The Japanese raddishes were gone too.  Totally gone.  I immediately thought maybe snails, but they usually just nibble and stuff.  And I couldn't find any tracks or evidence of them.

I then started thinking maybe a bird.  After all, I did have some entire strawberries go missing.

I found a tiny slug nesting in my bell plant.  Again, I didn't think anything of it.  I simply picked it out (with gloves and a shovel) and got rid of it. 

After another frustrating day of things mysteriously disappearing, I decided to try one more thing.  I've already used crushed egg shells to no avail.  It could be a bird, it could be slugs.  I didn't know.  So in a last ditch attempt to keep things organic, I filled pie tins with cheap beer and put them in different locations.

The next morning, my husband excitedly called me outside before work. 

7 slugs.  7 little damn slugs terrorizing my garden. 

Oh yeah.  We mean business around here.