I always take walks at night about 10 or 11 in my garden when things are young. Go with a flashlight and you will find slugs and earwigs....the two can really eat seedlings fast. If you are not into sqeezing them with your fingers take some forceps or tweezers. Be quick with the pincher bugs (earwigs) they move fast. By going out at night you can see how bad the problem is and just acouple nights might knock them back so you won't have to spray or use powders. Sometimes my wife joins me holding the flashlight for a romantic evening of bug squishing!!!

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!

caterpillars. use a flashlight & look for them about 10 PM.

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.