Everything I plant gets devoured by *something*

This is my first post on this forum. I live in Edinburgh and have a south-facing garden, with a neighbour's house and some tall trees on the southern border. Most of the garden is grass but there are some beds in which I have been trying to grow vegetables over the last few years. The soil is loamy.

I am not a very experienced gardener, and having a young family means that I have very little time for gardening. However I do try and plant some vegetables every year.

We have had a few successes over the years. Two years ago we had a good potato crop, and we've also had some success with onions and garlic. About 4 years ago we had a really good crop of runner beans.

There are other things that have been much less successful. An attempt at runner beans last year ended in total failure when they were eaten by, I assume, slugs and snails. Then we tried to grow beetroots but they met with the same fate. Salad leaves have also been eaten. This year my children were given a little bed of their own to grow things and decided to try growing swedes. Unfortunately these were also scoffed as soon as they sprouted. In the end all we were left with was a few bare stalks about 1-2 inches high which had been completely stripped of their leaves.

In another bed on the other side of the garden we have some kale plants, but every time they grow a leaf it gets eaten by pests. They have spent most of the year as bare stalks.

I really am at my wits end with it all. I would dearly love to grow a few vegetables but it seems as though everything that we plant is gobbled up as soon as it sprouts. Any advice that anyone on this forum can provide would be greatly appreciated!

 

I am horrified by the advance of Spanish slugs, huge things, frightening to look at and even worse to tread on, I will be investing in nematodes next year.
http://www.slugwatch.co.uk/?page_id=174

 

That's what I have 5 and 6 inches long, Ive tried beer pots, copper tape the lot have to be careful about slug pellets I have 3 dogs, plus I do think of other wildlife. Yesterday was the final straw, I have a winter clematis doing extremely they were attacking that well when I went into the garden this morning it's stripped. I'm going to try the garlic wash and see if that makes any difference. They even got into the greenhouse..nightmare.

I know it's not nice but if I see any any on the patio I've started salting them but of course you can't do that around you plants..so if the garlic works my garden will stink..