Something mysterious is eating my veggies... Help!

[slick_willy]

Hello everybody and a happy gardening season to you. This is my first post on this forum and I joined because of the issue I am having, although I do hope to learn a great deal more about gardening from being here.

I planted some started plants from 4" containers about three weeks ago, and have been using diatomaceous earth to try to keep snails and slugs and caterpillars away. (I am trying to use zero chemical pesticides or fertilizers this year.) I have applied DE religiously, about 4 applications in all, and when I rains I apply as soon as the rain stops.

In spite of this, upon inspecting my garden yesterday I was very upset to find some holes in the leaves of my beets, squash, corn and to a lesser extent my tomatoes and beans. It looks like snail and slug damage but I don't think it could be because wouldn't the DE scratch them all up and cause them to die? I posted pictures and any help at all qould be HUGELY appreciated!!!

Also whatever it is does not touch my onions, if that helps.

[slick_willy]

Also these plants are in a friend's garden. I have some of the same plants at my house (about a mile away), all in containers, and they do not show any of the same damage. This seems to scream snail and slug to me but what do you guys think?

[Gary350]

Looks like bugs. You need a few Wren bird houses.

[Marlingardener]

The first and last photos look like the plants have damage from cabbage caterpillars, which are laid by the cabbage moth. Has your neighbor noticed any white moth/butterfly activity near his vegetables?
Bacillus Thuriengiensis is effective in killing the caterpillars, and is non-toxic to bees, mammals, and humans.
http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/24d-captan/bt-ext.html
If the damage is from slugs or snails, the DE should have taken care of the problem. Since it didn't, you could take the "warfare" up a step and surround the plants with copper wire, or barbed wire.

[jal_ut]

Time to get some slug and snail bait?

Do a Google search for "kill Slugs"
This brings up many ideas and options.

[slick_willy]

Thanks for the replies guys. I sprayed some BT on my plants and it seems to have slowed the damage. I also put coffee grounds and DE around the bases of the plants and maybe that is helping as well. I am trying to go all natural and organic and so avoiding metaldehyde and iron phosphate because they have toxic ingredients in them, and I am not about to put that sh** in my soil if I don't have to =D

[rainbowgardener]

I missed this post the first time around, but it does look like slug/ snail damage. I like DE against them, except that it needs to be reapplied after rain. In my rainy climate, that is a major drawback. For someone with drier summers, it would work well.

[KitchenGardener]

I know this might not be nice of me (though the same can be said for the snails and slugs who come out at night to eat MY plants), but I go out with a flashlight and pick them off the plants. I will spare you the details of what happens next, though. In one medium sized pot of flowers, I once picked off 47.