With rare exceptions, ants are not a pest that needs to be eliminated, they are excellent for your conditioning and aerating soil. Fire ants are something most people don't want in their gardens, but they aren't harmful to plants. Holes in the leaves could be many things. If tiny holes, probably flea beetles. They are self limiting and usually don't so much harm and are pretty much gone by this time of year. Big holes could be a number of things; a picture would help. There are a number of worms that will destroy garden plants; Bt applications, like Dipel, are specific to caterpillars and won't harm anything else.

Another slant on the open containers, but I can't say that it would work in your temperatures and really am not suggesting you try it unless you had a few seeds to experiment with - this really may be climate specific. When I started winters sowing those things that require cold treatment - many perennials, trees, shrubs - many, many years ago and before I even had a computer, I got the suggestion from an English gardening magazine article. My climate is just about a mirror image of England, winter temps will almost average (day/night) that of my refrigerator that I'd been using, and I started out sowing as done by English gardeners, pots topped with grit or even fine aquarium gravel, no covers. I still do it that way (but don't WS annuals or vegetables). There is no possibility my pots will dry out over winter, I've never watered one yet....coastal Washington. The grit keeps gully washer rains from dislodging seed. Potting soil with adequate drainage prevents water logged pots...and I do sow in nursery pots. The only issue I've had are with sparrows sometimes disturbing the pots, and one year a chipmunk surprised me by planting sunflower seeds for me - a length of chicken wire across the top of groups of pots discourages both. If you lived someplace along the I5 corridor between Seattle and Portland or west of there to the ocean, I might suggest you try the method for hardy plants - but clearly you do not :)

The bug eyed head, the two wings in a V-position at rest, and the way the hind leg is jointed says FLY to me. It is similar to a horsefly. The two small appendages sticking forward at the top of its head are navigation aids. These act like a gyroscope when the fly is in flight. These vibrate in a plane at a high rate and when the insect turns, a small, but detectable gyrscopic moment is felt. Feedback from these detectors aids the fly to maintain its desired flight path and wing motion adjustment. Rate turn instruments for airplanes have been protytped and tested using this principle and found useable.

Hi woodnymph, You know....my IBS started up after I had a horrible flu and pneumonia in l995. But in retrospect, I was on antibiotics for 2 months, and now I wonder if they damaged my GI tract. I really dread being on antibiotics now because I seem to lose more and more of my GI function. I think antibiotics are more injurious to our intestines than we know. I've been tempted to have a stool test run by one of those places (Smokey Mountain labs??) to see if I didn't develop some sort of overgrowth back then, but haven't done it yet. I keep hearing that those places are sort of unreliable. And it seems like conventional docs don't believe in them. (But they don't always know everything, right?) But it sounds like you might have developed your problems from the antibiotics, just like I did. How much calcium are you on? What kind do you take? For many years, before the diarrhea got too bad, most of my symptoms were just rumbling and feeling like I had a small animal living in my chest. I hate it. It seems to come and go and come and go, and I can't always know what sets it off. Fortunately, the calcium has helped me alot. If I miss 1 or 2 doses, I get the diarrhea back. And it seems to happen at the most inopportune times! I got one of those "Magic Bullet" small blenders. Its really great for slushie-type drinks. Several mornings a week I make one for breakfast. I usually put in rice milk or almond milk, part of a banana, blueberries, and a tablespoon or 2 of ground flax seed. I coudln't believe how much this drink slows me down (with my diarrhea). Maybe you could try it a few days and see what happens? Try to find organic flaxseed. I forgot to do that and wished I had gotten it. I got mine at the grocery store where they have all those "Bob's" fresh ground flours, etc. Another interesting thing with me......the doc finally talked me into having a colonoscopy last June. I had it and was relieved that all was normal in there.......but it made me feel awful for months afterwards. I think the clean out really messed up the balance of good bacteria in there. I was nauseous and dizzy for 2 months. Finally, after a couple months on probiotics, I began to feel better. I think some of us just live with marginal GI function. There are several interesting books out there on the digestive system....like "The second brain", and "Digestive Wellness". The second one has alot of good suggestions. I use pepto bismol sometimes and it helps get me through the day sometimes. Good luck woodnymph!