pests in the garden

there are creatures eating our plants that we did not intend to have eating our plants. the worst pests have been the mexican bean beetles (which i sometimes find hard to kill because the larva look so much like the lorax) and japanese beetles (which i sometimes find hard to kill because they squirm when you hold them in your hand). we have also had a lot of colorado potato beetles (which i sometimes find hard to kill because the larva are usually covered in mountains of their own feces and the adults make this odd clicking/squeaking noise when you pick them up). we now have a giant yogurt container filled with water, a squirt of dish soap, and the carcasses of hundreds of unwanted insects. it smells worse than anything i have ever smelled before in my life and i have emptied two-week old head buckets into a giant vat of raw sewage, so i know from bad smells.