I've found I get really bad pest problems when the soil is poor or I am not watering enough or maybe it is raining too much and the soil is saturated, or even that I am trying to grow plants out of season, for instance, trying to keep cool season plants alive through the warm season. Some of these pests, in my
experience, help indicate when conditions are not quite right for the plant, and I'm not actually helping the plant if I try to kill the pest, who is just telling me the plants aren't happy.