Thank you for the responses! Couldn't find anything crawling around at night, but I did sprinkle some epsom salt around the plant. That environmental damage may be spot on...we have had some storms here. Appreciate all your help!

You guys really saved me. I had no idea what was slithering from the earth in the dark of night. I went out at midnight and I was amazed! There must have been hundreds of these slugs on the ground, in the grass and on the privacy fence and I had never seen more thn one or two before this in the yard. I set out beer traps as was suggested, no yeast because we don't bake, and immediately these things came out to feast. Easily caught 50 of them. I periodically checked the plates I set out and dumped them in one bucket and added more beer. However the ones in the bucket started crawling out. Fixed that buy adding a little salt. Does anyone know if they will avoid the beer trap if you add a little salt to it for effect? I think some of them survived after a night of binge drinking and will live to tell the tale! One thing I did find is that the plates need to be slightly in the ground if possible for easier access to the trap.

It sounds like horn worms aka the "tomato worm". Don't be fooled by the name; they love peppers and eggplants too. More info can be found here. If that is what it is, I feel your pain. A trio of them ruined my best Jalapeno plant last week, consuming 1/2 of the total foliage on the plant over 24 hours and leaving most of the peppers exposed to direct sunlight burn. They are ravenously hungry beasts. If you get lucky enough to see one feeding, you will be amazed how fast the gulp down the leaves, going from one to the next to the next. They also eat the fruit - actually, they burrow into the fruit enough to ruin it for your own eating, and then leave behind a ruined pod carcass with a hole in the middle. Best strategy seems to be to just go out in the morning and at night and pick them off. They are kind of hard to find, but can be found. They like to hang out on leaf stems, undersides of leaves, and occasionally on a main stem. If you search on horn worm, you'll get some other suggestions too, including corn starch, insecticidal soap, etc. But I was able to get them under control old-school style by just grabbing them and pulling them off the plants. They are destroyers of gardens, but few in number. (One or two can eat an entire plant, but once you get rid of them, they're gone). They're not like aphids - swarming in vast numbers. They're large and few in number. As soon as you see those droppings, that's your alarm bell to examine every inch of the plant to get rid of the worms before they gorge.

Hi Clara, The best thing to do is take the eggs and leaf to your local county Cornell cooperative extension office for identification and remedy. Here is a link that may help. Good luck. Kareen http://ipm.ncsu.edu/vegetables/pamphlets/peppers/peppers.html Here is a link that might be useful: Our pond and gardens