K wrote:

My experience with beans is that slugs and snails go for the stems in
preference to the leaves, felling the entire plant just above the
ground.

Interesting. Are you talking about young plants? Certainly I've lost
several young plants like that this year, but mostly, I sow in pots
inside and only plant out when they're a bit taller. Once they get
established they seem to be able to cope with a bit of 'attention'.

The ones I tried to sow directly were almost a complete loss though.

Peter