The beetles, which look like lady bugs are squash bugs. They like squash, sometimes cukes depending on the cuke leaf and that's pretty much it (tiny red ones like that are bean beetles). I've personally never had a stink bug bother my fall vegetables, but I never know. One year they thought yard long beans were all the rage. This year they land on every tomato in the main garden, but apparently dislike anything in the temporary garden? So go figure? I doubt they will like your leafy greens though. They tend to like squishy things with some "give" (such as almost but not totally ripe tomatoes) that they can stick a probiscus in and suck. Annoyingly.... grrmmmm For your own piece of mind you can plant and put some Diamotaceous earth down, but I bet in a day or two your bugs will have vacated the premises for greener pastures (but don't send them here!!!) What's this about cold winter frosts killing bugs. We had a cold winter, this is the worst bug year (ants, cockroaches, palmetto bugs, stink bugs....) ever.

That wee larva inside the spit is a Spittle Bug, the larva of a froghopper, as it is known, A sharp steam of water can knock the wee bugger off the plant, but just washing away the foam will not necessarily do that. Once the foam is gone you can usually see to wee larva. The other brown, soft, slimy thingys are a bit more difficult but most likely are slugs, or the larva of any one of a number of insects. If a sharp stream of water does not do a good enough job of control (often just knocking these wee buggers off the plant is enough), and Insecticidal Soap is no help perhaps moving up to Neem Oil products or eventually to a pyrethrin based pesticide may be necessary.

somehow the beginning of my message was cut off. As the pictures above show, the bottom leaves are dying off. I have removed most of the dead leaves, There are also grey and darker spots on the stems, which are pictured above. Would love some help identifying this problem as well as solutions. I read through a book I have on tomatoes and could not identify the disease with one in particular. As noted above,the plants are in pots which have peat, vermiculite and the other small glass rock. My home made equivalent of a earthbox.

They both have there pros and cons But if your soil does drain fairly fast then the plant really isn't soaking up any of it. That way if you soak it it insures that your plant Is obtaining the water that it needs. Like Rhizo said it might also need repotting if it is pot bound. In which the root mass takes up most of the pot leaving less soil to absorb the moisture. Like you said just fill up a sink and put it in there for maybe 5-10 minutes then allow it to drain out in the sink. You don't have to soak all your plants you can also water them how you would normally. I usually soak my succulents and my big spider plant as the succulents are in a fast draining mix and my spider is due for a repot and insures that the water dosnt spill all out the bottom and create a waterfall down my cabinet like it has done in the past I'm not sure what the white thing is but you said you've noticed webbing between the leave so like purple said that's most likely spider mites. I'd look for spider mites damage on the leaves and for more webbing. I usually use a flashlight at night and go through all the leaves to make sure I see no webbing or mites.