Barb, hate to worry you, but rabbits do eat tomatoes and green peppers..I don't know about hot peppers, never grew the hot..I've even see squirrels munching away..LOL..It's hard growing veggies w/all the wildlife around..especially, if like me, you don't use chemicals..Then there are bugs that like veggies, too..I remember tomato worms yrs ago..haven't seen one in yrs, but they were long, semi-curly, light green worms. I don't know if this will work, but I've read if you spray w/cayenne pepper, animals and pests will stay away..Toni

Oh, there are definitely aphids. There are also many half eaten aphid corpses among them, from the half dozen or so ladybugs I've relocated from other parts of my yard to my peppers. There are, what I think and hope, are ladybug eggs on a couple of the leaves, small yellow clusters. Watching them closely to see what happens. Thanks Bruce and Kevin. You're right, it doesn't matter what it is, it just needs to go away. Are hornworms prevalent in the Pacific Northwest? I went back out tonight and found several more of them. Hornworms have a weird.. well.. horn looking thing on top of their heads, right? These don't seem to have that particular feature. Along with them, I found a few earwigs on the plants. All were promptly squished. I have some neem oil on order, which hopefully should be here within the next few days. Now that I think about it though, I'm a little hesitant to use it near the ladybugs. Hmm...

Jean, Thanks, that's it. The first thing I thought when I saw them is they look like a turtle. When I searched "turtle insect tomatoes" on Google earlier and saw tortoise beetles the pictures didn't look enough like this one. I did more searches and found a picture of the exact kind after I read your post. Will BTK kill them if they become a problem? In past years they were more of a problem on pepper plants and not tomato plants but I don't have any pepper plants this year. Thanks, Don

Our quail here in the southwest will occasionally go on a green vegetable eating binge and do a lot of damage. We have the quail with the cute little bundle feathers on top of the head; look like something out of an old war movie.