Yes........many people do kill ladybug nymphs because they are ugly so they must be bad. argh. They also spray when they see plant damage and then see the neat packets of yellow eggs. A good hoard of ladybugs can clean up an aphid infestation very quickly. I was having aphid problems this year on the green peppers in my greenhouse. I used oil on them so as not to harm beneficials after the fact, and directly afterward ladybugs moved in and cleaned the whole crop up slicker than snot.

Below is a link to an extension article on bean beetles that might provide the info you're looking for. It looks like they aren't too bad if they don't build up their numbers. Do you have chickens? If you do, let them so some cleanup: let them into the area and then go along the plants and tap them to make the beetles fall to the ground, where the chickens can get them. I would let the birds in first, maybe draw them to the area with a spoonful of scratch, THEN start tapping the leaves, so they can see the tasty morsels fall and grab them before they take cover. But I wouldn't let the birds roam unescorted or for too long, as they will dig soil away from the bean plant roots. Sue Here is a link that might be useful: U of MN: Bean leaf beetles home garden

CUCUMBER BEETLES: The little yellow beetles are probably cucumber beetles. There are two types of cucumber beetles: striped and spotted. The striped cucumber beetles are Acalymma vittatum. The adults are yellow and are about 1/4" long, although I see plenty that don't seem to get quite that long. They have black heads and 3 wide black stipes that run down their backs--actually the stripes are on their wing covers. The larvae, which you seldom see, are tiny white, skinny grubs. The striped cucumber beetle larvae often feed on the roots of your squash family plants. The spotted cucumber beetles are Diabrotica undecimpunctata howardi. They are more of a yellowish-green and are about the same size as the striped beetles. They have 11 black spots on their wing covers. Their larvae are small white grubs with brown heads and brown patches on their first and last body segments. The spotted cucumber beetle larvae eat the roots of corn, so they are often referred to as southern corn rootworms. Both types of beetles will feed on many plants, including ornamental flowers, but they prefer all members of the squash family (cucurbits). They will eat both the flowers and the leaves of all cucurbits. Sometimes they attack young plants so vigorously that they kill them. On the older plants they may even gnaw holes in the stems and fruit. The spotted cucumber beetle adults overwinter in crop residue from the previous year or in mulch, leaves, etc. They generally hatch out as grubs in April and feed for 2 or 3 weeks before they pupate. With our long summers we often have multiple generations of them. The striped cucumber beetles overwinter in grass or under leaves. They are generally a little later to show up in my garden. I usually start seeing them in May. When they hatch, they live on weed pollen for 2 or 3 weeks before moving on to crop plants. They lay their eggs in the soil at the base of your plants. At least at our house they seem less prolific than the spotted ones and I think I only see a couple of generations of them every year. These are evil bugs. Not only do they eat your plants, they carry diseases like cucumber mosaic virus which they spread from plant to plant as they feed. They are incredibly hard to eradicate, especially if you garden organically. If you don't have cats, you can spray them with a pyrethrin product. Pyrethrin is toxic to cats, though. To eliminate the grubs in the ground, you can spray your soil with beneficial nematodes, but they are expensive. The best defense is a good offense with these bugs. Cover your plants with floating row cover material. (Sheer curtains can be used instead of floating row coves.) You will have to hand-pollinate, though, if you leave the plants underneath the row covers. Some people believe that having a heavy cover of straw mulch underneath the cucurbits makes it difficult for the larvae to move from plant to plant. I prefer to garden organically, but some people do choose to use chemical pesticides so I'll tell you which one is most effective in case it is an option which you wish to pursue. There is a chemical pesticide called Adios that combines a small amount of Sevin with cucurbitacins (to encourage the bugs to eat the pesticide). If you choose to use Adios or something similar, I would avoid applying it during pollination as it could kill your pollinators. TOMATOES: I hope your tomatoes will pull through and survive the wet soil. Sometimes tomatoes can be surprisingly resilient. Last year we received 9.25" of rain in one day in our part of Love County, and 8" of that fell in a 4 hour period. Because our property sits downhill from our neighbors' property, we had water draining underground for at least a month. I was sure I would lose my tomato plants. The soil had that mucky, sour smell of soil that has been too wet for too long. My tomato plants just sat there. They yellowed. They didn't grow. I was sure they would die. Finally they began growing again after maybe 3 or 4 weeks of struggling just to survive. I lost only 1 plant. I had an excellent crop. So, don't lose hope. Also, you can plant paste tomatoes anytime and still get a good crop for planting. They seem to bloom and produce well despite our heat. I have planted them as late as June or July and still had plenty of paste tomatoes.

Ken, That might be the best gardening advice anyone has given me. And yeah, I'm having so much obsessive fun with all this that it's killing me. I have a tendency to take things to the extreme, and this garden is certainly a prime example (i.e., I was out in the garden with a headlamp until 3am). I'm going to work on. By the way, yesterday, after writing my initial post, I was afraid to use the solution I brewed (garlic, onion, cayenne, couple drops of soap), but I was afraid that in my eight hour absence, the small creatures would devour my crop. So I just used about a half teaspoon of dawn in a spray bottle and really soaked down the spots where the aphids and yellow cucumber beetles were colonizing. I bombed it good, and cringed while doing so. Anyway, I got home from work last night and the aphids and beetles had all but disappeared. Your comment about IPM is something I hadn't considered. It's time to do some serious research on this and proceed sustainably in that regard, too. I'm trying to do this right. So I welcome all advice. Thanks very much. Question: If I see aphids in my greens, even if I see only a few, do I not want to eradicate them immediately? I've been under the impression that they will multiply at an insane rate and cause great destruction. The internet can be a terrifying place to look for answers. It's like googling "why does my head hurt?" To which one would undoubtedly be diagnosed with brain cancer by some genius on some medical forum. In any event, your recommendation to chill the hell out is a good one. Cheers. P.S. If, when I get back from work, the evil-doers are back in droves, I'm going to try the home brew solution on one or two plants and see what happens. Do you think that's a bad idea?