We have just started go grow stuff ( veg ) for this year in the garden.
This is our second year of 'the good life' :-) and last year was
fairly successful considering we know absolutely nothing about gardening
but a lot of things suffered really badly from slugs and snails. I really
don't want to kill things if I don't have to. Is there any way to 'discourage'
slugs and snails and encourage them to eat next doors garden without
actually killing them.
You could put broken eggshells (broken edges up, of course!) around your plants. Snails and slugs don't like having to crawl over anything that's sharp-edged, e.g. gravel and broken glass.
… Or bury several small styrofoam dishes up to its edge in the ground her your plants and put an inch or so of cheap beer in the bottom… yes, you'll be killing them but it's effective and they die happy...