Has the cold weather sorted the slugs?

Whisper it, but we seem to have lost little yet to the slugs and snails which were such a problem in my garden last year...
It's not that there aren't any of the critturs around. We planted a couple of slug pubs in the garden last weekend and they seem to have been satifyingly busy over the week, with tens of bodies to throw into the compost heap this morning. The one next to the scabious clump (which has been well chewed by something) was the most crowded.
I spotted a few chewed leaves on the black elder and the hairy mint this morning (and aphid foam on the black peppermint) but lettuce on the allotment, and lobelia planted out last week seem (fingers crossed) untouched. However, half the early Nantes carrots seeds planted in March either didn't come up or met an early lunch date - I'm just not aware of having lost carrots to slugs before.
Even if the recent cold snap has temporarily slowed them down, I'm staying watchful.

Growing great spuds in a wet summer

Just for a change this is not about my own allotment - after last year's washout, when my allotment was waterlogged and all my spuds rotted in the ground I decided not to bother growing them this year.

George told me a couple of weeks ago that he'd had a disappointing crop this year; he blamed it on the great pesticide in horse manure problem, which has affected many gardeners around the country this season. He and Bill lost broad beans and other crops due to poisoned compost which adversely affected and deformed growth. Perhaps I should be grateful that I didn't have any manure to use this year and last!

Bill was digging up his spuds late last week and found all very badly afflicted with little black slugs -he had to throw away a large proportion of the crop as they'd been spoiled.

But Charlie has had a great crop this year, and he puts it down to soot! He has a coal fire (you don't find many of those in south west London) and when the chimney sweep makes his annual visit, Charlie keeps the soot for his allotment. When he plants his potatoes, he sprinkles in fertiliser and a handful of soot around each spud. As he was harvesting the spuds today, some of them have the soot around them as they've grown into it. and almost none are affected by the slugs or indeed the huge quantities of rain we've experienced this summer.