That’s what my reply was going to be. Heavy mulching is preferred because bare soil is bad and dries out, washes & blows away but some people have a problem with slugs. In that case, learn to hoe properly, after you learn how to sharpen a hoe and customize the tilt of it to fit you. Left vs right handed, height etc. You can zip through a good sized area in 10-15 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z_IRRZq4A0
This guy knows his hoes.
We have a slug problem here, but I have heard that a weak ammonia solution can kill slug eggs.
In addition, I will be using homemade slug traps for them to drown in, slug bait, and scrap pieces of wood laid down for them to hide under. It will just be a matter of doing a slug check every day for a while and exterminating any I find post haste.