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There's the system of putting beer out in bowls.  Yep, just open a perfectly good beer, pour it into a bowl, and put it in the garden.  Under the cover of darkness (or daylight if it's a wet day), those slugs will come to your beer party, slide over the side of the bowl, and promptly drown in their (your) own beer.

That's all great, except I have a hard time feeding perfectly good beer to slugs, so here's my recipe for a brew to get the same result:

Fill a 1/2 gallon container (I use a plastic pitcher for the convenience of the handle and pouring spout) with tepid water.  Add 4 teaspoons of sugar and 4 teaspoons of yeast (I make bread so have bulk bread yeast in the house).   Mix until sugar and yeast are dissolved.

Take your "brew" and a stack of small cereal/dessert bowls into the garden.  Wiggle/twist the bowls into the soil near the edge of your garden.  You'll want to attract slugs away from the plants, not toward them.  "Seat" the bowls so that the rims are almost as low as the soil level, but not quite.  Fill the bowls with the brew, go back into the house, open a beer for yourself, click here for some beer drinking polka music, then open the windows and turn up your computer speakers so the slugs'll have polka music for their beer party, too.

If you can't stand to wait until morning, go out a little while later with a flashlight and watch the party as the slugs come from all directions to attend the party.  The next morning, you'll have some bowls to clean and fewer slugs in your garden chomping your plants.  Image: The Morning After.