I lost the first two plantings of vine crops to slug damage. One night, I went out with a flashlight to find 11 tiny slugs on one two inch leaf. Even though I handpicked and squashed them, the plant did not survive the attack. The first planting of cucumbers did not germinate, so I resowed. When they all germinated, I decided to transplant half of them to another section of the garden. Last night, I was out there 3 times picking and squishing..This morning most of them look desperate. It's only the one section of garden space that gets the most shade that is the problem. Crop rotation and less leaf mold next season hopefully will solve my problem. Egghead, I hope your second sowing is more successful than the first.

Oh, no wait - scratch that. Not sure if it is mosaic virus or bacterial wilt. I know I definitely saw a few cucumber beetles so I figure it is one or the other. Will take pics today and try to post them later. So I guess my question is how bad was it if I ate them with either of those diseases.

Justine, healthy plants makes it easier for the plant to shrug off and overcome pests and disease. Baby tomato plants can't shrug it off so easy, and some pests just like to go for the good stuff ... i.e. the new leaf growth or blooms. No blooms means no fruit. As your property becomes more organic, you can have more and more beneficial insects come in. However, your close neighbors can have a negative impact on that. As you noted, I think you are right that your passion vine death was from herbicide. Your pole beans, what type/variety? Has the temperature really dropped enough down south for your variety? The little green worm is the larvae stage of some moth. I'm not sure which. Control is (1) picking (2) spray - BT & Spinosad (3) sticky traps. Hopefully Silvia will come along and help me out, because I don't know all that much. Here is what I do, I tour my garden every morning, starting with the baby tomatoes. I'm looking for curled up leaves and sticky stuff sticking leaves and stems together. Sometimes you can see frass (poo-poo) around, and sometimes you can barely see little bitty strands of web stuff gluing the leaf curl. Ideally, I just pick off everything sticky. If the plant is too small, I carefully open up the leaves and stuck together stuff and try to rub off the bad stuff. As the morning progress and the sweat starts rolling on my glasses my ability to see closeup deteriorates. This is when I just start picking. Anything I pick gets taken to the pavement and squished. PS - Nice blog! Hope this wall'o'text helps you. Lessons on Picassa another day. That is where your blogger photos are stored. If you can make your way into Picassa we can probably show you how to get your photos on here. ~dianne

Grasshoppers? I am having a hard time with them this year.