Well, the SLUGGO has been administered this evening! I had my daughter hold the flashlight while I sprinkled away! I had several baby slugs on three of my already demolished plants - the leaves were almost non-existent, so I don't know what they were feeding on....so I pulled them up, but my daughter suggested I leave the plants in the garden so hopefully the slugs that do come out to feed will eat on the already dead plants! Oh, and my beer trap is FILLED with slugs! Eeeeewww!

Yes you heard the right thing dear. Dishwater is really helpful for your leaves. You should use dishwater twice in a day.

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!

How many holes in an average leaf? 5? 10? 25? 50? And, how big are the holes? The size of a BB? The size of an M&M? Larger than that? Are you seeing any grasshoppers or leafhoppers around because that's usually what eats my bean leaves. Dawn