ahh...Springtime...

The allergens are in full swing, the birds are chirping, the blackberries are blooming...

and, the caterpillars have returned:

these little bugaroos are seriously the bane of my existence. Those guys, "skeeter eaters," and people who smack their lips while eating. And people who hoark loogies. Ugh. Skin crawling.

Anyway, I cannot count how many times I have left my garden in the morning all nice and leafy and come home to this horrendous carnage:

I really don't understand why they don't like the stalks. It's seriously beyond me, as well as is the incredible amount of damage these little (when I say little I mean BIG HONKING ALICE IN WONDER LAND CATERPILLARS) creatures are capable of.  Also beyond me: why the above picture makes me think of fashion magazines.

Anyhoo, what to do, what to do. 

In the case of slugs, setting out a pie pan of cheapster beer that's deep enough for a slug to drown in will do the nasty little trick. I once drowned 40 slugs in the span of a couple hours. It was foul.

In the case of caterpillars, I've done a couple things successfully. I've used thuricide which is an organic pesticide which is a bacterial agent that kills things like caterpillars in the larvae stage only. There's all kinds of warnings on it against humans ingesting the stuff in concentrated quantities, which is enough to make me leery of putting it on stuff that I'm going to eat. But that's just the paranoia talking.

You could also try zipping some of the following in your favorite food processor: garlic, water, onion, cayenne pepper, and 1 Tbs dish soap. Put it all in a spray bottle and go to town. I can't think of anything that wouldn't be repelled by that.

For other pests, one could also try ladybugs, but I can't speak to their awesomeness because I haven't yet tried them. It's all drowning slugs and spicy soapy spray for now.