OK you guys are right.. I looked up the BP and that was one of the b~flies I had been taking photos of the other day. Cool!! Thanks! :) khakitag- hi there...! hmm, passion vines.. but, do you have mexican sunflowers?? It's hard to believe.. after all the stuff I planted for the butterflies- these are the cheapest, fastest growing (from seed), most dependable & steady bloomers, and most butterfly-friendly. Just in a couple months they go from little sprouts to a HUGE bush with tons of flowers, and it's taller (and much wider) than me now! I have seen hundreds of longwings this year, they are out there flitting around all day long- several at a time.. and finally got to see the julias, for the first time. If you scatter some of these seeds next spring, I bet you will have some next year. and it should re-seed like crazy too.

Dee, It depends on what kind of bouquet I'm making as to what stem length I cut. It's not often I can match the length of a sunflower, so I usually don't add zinnias to those bouquets. I find the zinnia needs to be worked into the center or slightly out from the enter of the bouquet, rather than the outer edge because they will crease at the top of the stem and then flop over in your bouquet. (Usually noticed when you are handing the bouquet to the customer.) Some of my zinnias had great stem length this year due to the wet July weather, then when the sun finally showed up in August the stems took off. I still have to sacrifice one or possibly 2 future flowers, but I never take 4. When I do a "all zinnia" bouquet, the stems are a bit shorter than say when I'm making something colorful using amazon neon and other flowers. I had never made just all zinnia bouqeuts up until this year, and only took 3 with me to the market but they sold pretty quick. I seemed to have customers last week that liked the idea of an "all one flower" bouquet. I did another with all pink asters and that one sold as well. You just never know. Cheryl

If it is slugs another method that works quite well is beer. I've used it for years and years and it never fails to work. All you need is quite a few very shallow bowls and the cheapest beer you can find. Place the shallow bowls strategically around the plants that are being attacked by the slugs, then fill the bowls with the beer. Next morning you will have tons and tons of drowned slugs in the bowls of beer. I have an old, very small sieve I use to take the slugs out of the beer and drop them into an empty coffee can. Every other day I just pour the beer on the ground from the bowls and add more. Never failed to end the slug problem within 3 weeks. When my son was young, around 10, (he's 30 now), he would go outside after 10pm with a flashlight and watch the slugs fight to get into the bowls of beer. The things just couldn't resist the bowls of beer. Fran

Susan, If I knew then, what I knew now, I might have looked for property a tiny bit closer to town. I'm not sure if being a mile or two outside of town would be better than be further away though. I thought our biggest pests would be armadilloes, rabbits and deer, and in a way they are, but oh my, the caterpillars are driving me insane. It isn't just "me" either. I looked for Bt in the big box stores (Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowe's) in the larger towns to our north (Ardmore) and to our south (Gainesville, TX) and they were sold out, and have been for days. TSC was sold out when we were in there last week and this week. I finally found Bt at a small independent feed and seed store in Gainesville this morning, so I have it here sitting on the table, and I can/will use it if the levels of damage do not diminish. I also noticed big empty gaps in the synthetic pesticide section at the big box stores and I had to look to see what was sold out. It was all the various forms of Sevin. Tractor Supply's shelf was bare too, but there was a newly-opened case of powdered Sevin sitting on the floor by the bare shelf, so clearly they were in the midst of restocking the stores. This morning a white-lined sphinx flew into my greenhouse when I opened the door. I told it to go elsewhere to lay its eggs, but I suspect it will do whatever it pleases. Milkweed plants (the native green milkweed that we call Antelope Horns here) in the pasture that I couldn't even find 2 weeks ago are suddenly huge and beginning to bloom, so that's good news. Crane Flies have been horrible for about 6 weeks, but their numbers are dropping every day here no, so they have peaked. Ditto for the June bugs, which this year have been March bugs. I am seeing fewer moths this week than last but I don't know if that translates yet to less damage since the moths undoubtedly laid lots of eggs. This year, in an effort to draw the cabbage worms away from the broccoli and cabbage, I planted mustard because they love mustard and usually gobble it right up. So, guess which plants in my garden show virtually no damage while everything else is holey? Yep, the mustard. I have beautiful perfect mustard crops. Sometimes trap crops just don't work like they're supposed to, and I guess this is one of those years. Everything is accelerating here because of the early heat. Flowers have bloomed a month or two ahead of schedule, pests have made early appearances, etc. It is bizarre. I also think it partially explains the heavy insect damage because bugs that usually do damage in Feb and Mar, for example, have had the company of plenty of other insects that usually don't show up until Apr, May, Jun or Jul. I wish I could know what that means in terms of what the pests will do in the coming months. And, yes Susan, I think the cucumber beetles are likely to give you more trouble since you're growing more cucurbits. However, nothing in nature is predictable. Who would have predicted I wouldn't see a single squash bug in a hot year like we had last year? Or that the Colorado Potato Beetles would be totally absent this year (at least so far). Or that I wouldn't have squash bugs here but Kelly would have them up there in northern OK. Mother Nature likes to keep us on our toes by throwing surprises our way just about nonstop. One thing that's missing at our house this year is wasps. We had some swarm on the first really hot day, and then they were around a day or two and I haven't seen one since. Usually by now, they are everywhere. That's bad news. I haven't seen predatory wasps either, which probably helps explain all the caterpillar damage in the garden. I've order some wasps for delivery next week and I'll release them in an effort to restore some balance to the garden's ecosystem that it is sorely lacking right now. Dawn