Yikes! What I do is, whenever possible,
put down the mulch after the first hard frost, applying a dusting of
coarse sand first. This prevents the slugs from moving in and getting comfortable during the winter. I add a
top dressing of sand around particularly vulnerable plants. Also, my chipmunks view snails and slugs as delicacies; I find neat little piles of shells here and there in the garden. I've never seen a vole here, but we have plenty of mice. There's a national park on the other side of my fence (literally), so we get a lot of critters passing through the property, including carnivores. Fortunately we don't have to rely on our crops for our livelihoods; we enjoy watching the beasties frolicking.
