So in order to understand what to kill, you will need to know what the food chain in your garden is. By knowing this information you can eliminate some of the need for pesticides or other products you would not need in your garden.

When you are planting your garden, you can use plants that will attract the health bugs. The bugs that you will want to have in your garden and the plants that you can plant to get them are:

Beneficial bugs

Ladybugs
Red worms
Lacewings
Thricogramma
Damsel bugs
Big-eyed bugs
Spine soldier bugs
Tachnid flies

Plants that attract beneficial bugs

Culinary herbs
Dill
Marigolds
Roses
Cosmos

Ok, so other than planting vegetation and plants that will encourage the good bugs. You will also want to look at the bad bugs and what you can do to get rid of them.

There are roughly 40 different kinds of slugs out there. Of course you will probably not need to know about all of them or worry about them getting into your garden. However, it is good to know what they look like, and how to get rid of them.

Start by eliminating the places that slugs and snails will gather and live. This would be in shaded, damp areas. Check for boards, stones, debris, compost piles, branches etc. Keep this stuff back away from your garden area.

Removing slugs by hand is an affective way of ridding many of them from your garden. You can either go through periodically or pull all of them out, or you can just get them out when you see them. When doing this, you will probably want to use gloves. This way you do not get all slimy.

You can also use a more time efficient manner of slug traps. Use an aluminum can. Cut it around 1/3 of the way from the bottom. Put the can in the soil so it is firm. Then put a little beer or water with yeast in it. This will attract the slugs to the trap. This will drown the slugs. Again, not easy to do in some cases, but if you simply move them, well you know the rest of the story.

Dispose of the slugs into the garbage. If you simply move them, they will likely migrate back to your garden. Then you will be starting all over again.

Keep in mind that if you use any type of pesticide for either the bugs or the slugs, you are going to be killing the good inhabitants of your garden with the bad. Then you will be limiting the growth of your healthy garden. You will also be exposing yourself and others to those chemicals.

Eliminating slugs and bugs from your garden may not be easy or fast. However, if you take the time to see what is in your garden, then you will see that there are steps you can take to protect it.