Pest management is complex. If you want to learn, a good place to start is here: Integrated Pest Management This lecture is presented in two parts. Each part is 90-minutes in length. Recorded in Sacramento County in California's Sacramento Valley, this lecture is by Mary Louise Flint, Ph.D., Director, IPM Education and Publications, UC Statewide IPM Project and Extension Entomologist & Cooperative Extension Specialist. Education: B.S. Plant Science, University of California, Davis Ph.D. Entomology, University of California, Berkeley Appointment: 100% Cooperative Extension Research Interests: Integrated pest management of landscape, agricultural and garden pests; biological control of arthropod pests; alternatives to pesticides; adoption of alternative practices by practitioners; innovative delivery of pest management information. Topics discussed in the Integrated Pest Management Lecture: * IPM references and resources * Preventing pest problems * Natural common enemies * Making less toxic pesticide choices * Controlling aphids, scales, caterpillars, coddling moths, tree borers, snails and slugs, and lawn insects. You can watch the programs now online: Just make sure you have Real Player installed or download it free. Integrated Pest Management Part1 90 minutes Integrated Pest Management Part 2 90 minutes You'll want to bookmark the following link to Professor Flint's Lab Research on: Controlling Pests in Gardens and Landscapes: Vegetables and Melons I promise you'll learn one or two things to put in your gardening bag of pest management arsenals. ;)

I will second Civil84's observations regarding ants on yardlongs. The ants' presence on them is benign, unless the ants being attracted are carpenter ants (which can be destructive) or they are farming aphids. Something else is chewing the plants... beetles (Striped or Spotted Cucumber, Bean, or Colorado Potato) would be my first guess. Cucumber beetles are doing a number on my entire garden this year. All cowpeas (yardlongs are just a sub-species of cowpea) have pads on their flower stalks, one for each set of blossoms. These produce a substance that is very attractive to several types of insects; wasps, ladybugs - and ants. There is obviously some evolutionary reason for nectar production _outside_ the flower; perhaps for the symbiotic protective relationship with ants suggested by Civil, perhaps for some other organism in their native environment. The ants are certainly very protective of the plants. But on a side note, the wasps that feed there seem very docile; I have never been stung, even while harvesting. They appear to be intoxicated. Ladybug adults also feed from the pads, in large numbers. It has been mentioned on other threads how hard it is to keep ladybugs (especially released ones) within the garden. Providing them a good food source is helpful - I believe that the large population in my garden each year is due (at least in part) to the large numbers of yardlongs & cowpeas that I grow. So to make that long(bean) story short, don't be too hasty in pulling up your yardlongs. They keep many beneficial insects in the garden. In fact, try to plant them as early as possible, from transplants if necessary... they will not begin attracting ladybugs, for example, until they bloom. As for the eggplant... ants are not normally attracted to them, so I suspect that they are carrying aphids there. Inspect the leaf undersides; if you find aphids, refer to the thread below: Here is a link that might be useful: Holy Cow - It's a microscopic zoo!

Flibbertigibbet, compadre! these are my tactics also. But i'm glad to be reminded of diatomaceous earth because i've used this often and it's really helped. One does need to be careful of any ingestion of this - just for it's talcum-type quality - bad for the lungs. And my other most favorite and who-knows-how-effective-it-is (very on Japanese beetles) is the cayenne/chili powder. I killed a lotta potato bugs with cayenne, and any soft-bodied bug. Also, i used Safers when i was employed as an exotic plant care tech and had good results with pests but there are precautions with it, too. It's just "safer" than others. Thanks for all the good ideas! I'm excited by my eggplant's growth.

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the vote of confidence! lascatx and jterrilynn, thank you so much for putting the time to create those mock ups. jterrilynn, I got the strip from behr yesterday. It's definitely darker then what we have up now. very pretty color. I do really like the RP, especially this morning as we actually have a little sun poking through. It's amazing how much this color changes throughout the day. funcolors, I'm glad you chimed back in from the other post. I was thinking the same thing that the others are so close to each other, but wasn't sure if it was just my untrained eye. My husband came in with all the other samples pinned up and said, do you really think we need to spend another $120+ for that small of a difference. We will finish it up on Monday/Tuesday as we have to replace the baseboards and then I'll post another pic. I'll need suggestions for window treatments at that time ;) Love this board, you are all so very helpful!