I avoid using salt, nearly all veges really resent it. If you actually catch one in the act, as it were, they drown unprotestingly(?) in a cup of water.
Beer traps really work (there'll be millions of how-tos on the net), but between being disorganised/lazy and it raining every day, I don't find them that effective.
Over here there's a relatively 'safe' brand of slug pellets. I'm sure you've got a version. Just go easy on them, I see pellets in heaps around plants, and more is not better! The other biggie is you need to put down more if it rains

Last year I had quite a few slugs but this year doesn't seem to be that many at least not yet. This year I didn't mulch too much until the last couple weeks and also I used sluggo. Not sure what made the difference.

Last year from July on I had to sow most things in containers or they got devoured shortly after sprouting. If I had to guess I'd probably have problems sowing in the garden now and would start in containers. Usually once a plant has one or two sets of true leaves it seems safer from slugs.

Thanks, I'm going to set out a few beer traps and see what I get. I was also concerned about salting in the garden, so I'm giving that one up and going for drowning. I think that gjcore hit it on the head with setting out larger plants, hopefully that will help.

First year of my gardening i had the same question until somebody told me to go to the garden in evening with flashlight. Since then i am fighting slugs all the time.

What is helping me most in our wet climate:
1. Beer trap to get big slugs (but i had to put them under some cover to prevent rain from diluting beer).
2. Night patrol with flashlight. I use tweezers to pick them and drop in jar with salted water.
3. diatomaceous earth. I prefer now to start seeds in pots and use diatomaceous earth when transplaning. I dust it around my transplants, but need to be reapplied after rain.
Crashed egg shells can be used as well.
4. copper colars around transplants, slugs don't like to touch copper. Last year i found on garage sale old copper pipes, flatted them to make collars.
5. copper wire on yorgurt cups: cut off bottom of cup, put it around transplant wider part down and wrap with some copper wire.
6. Sometims UCG help too.

My question is how to prevent this from happening again.

I'd wager there are a thousand threads on this board discussing slug control. Use the search function and find the ones that suit your personality, some of which can be found enumerated in briergardener's nice list above. But surely 3-4-5 methods at once are in order.

Dan