Since planting out our vegetable garden we have had the case of the mysterious disappearing broccoli starts. Although there were no signs of slugs, yesterday I went to the beach to get some sand to put around the edge of the raise beds. Apparently for slugs it feels like glass to crawl across the sand. However, yesterday afternoon and this morning more broccoli plants had gone, as well as an ochre seedling. So we are now guessing that birds are the culprits and I covered the plants with netting. We’ll see if the remaining plants, remain.