Dragonfly Larvae will eat smaller fish. Goldfish and Koi are susceptible when young, but get their revenge as adults. I've seen goldfish devour larvae during my spring cleanings. I think Larry is correct about your guppies. Kind of a no win scenario. Add some goldfish and you would no longer see much larvae, but the goldfish would eat the guppies. Dragonflies do eat mosquitoes. They also eat pollinating insects such as bees. Nature requires a balance. The YouTube video below demonstrates what what can happen to small fish. Here is a link that might be useful: Larvae Attack

Whiteflies! I'm an organic gardener in zone 7. I've been gardening for many years, but the last dozen or so I've gotten a lot more serious (and had a lot more challenges, and fun.) At the beginning of June this year, I discovered whiteflies (for the first time ever) in three distinct garden areas of our property, each area separated by a good deal of lawn (well, the yard has SOME grass, but it's mostly weeds & clover.) One area was very active with whiteflies, the other two somewhat less so, but it was clear they were dispersed throughout the property. I read and read and read and came up with this protocol, which I hope will help anyone else who runs into the same pest. First, I suspended my weekly spray of a gentle foliar feeding solution (spray n grow & bills perfect fertilizer) to slow down the plant growth that whiteflies find so appealing. Then, every evening for a full week, I sprayed every plant and shrub in my gardens with the following blend: 1 gallon Ivory soap water 1 gallon water 8 tsps take down concentrate 2 cups commercial concentrated deer repellent (primarily garlic/clove/mint/egg centric) (We live in a VERY high deer pressure area so I was already spraying my .66 acres of gardens & shrubs with a rotation of deer repellents every evening, two gallons a night.) For perspective, I used three batches of this whitefly action brew (so six gallons total) every night. The Ivory water wasn't carefully measured. I took a large bar of Ivory soap, left it in a gallon of water overnight, and used that. Then I used the same bar in successive gallons. That one bar lasted the whole time I sprayed. I sprayed the outsides of everything, of course, but also shoved the sprayer nozzle into the middle of each plant/shrub, doing my best to get to the undersides of the leaves & stems, too. Five evenings into my spraying, I noticed no more whitefly activity. Interestingly, the pollinators remained abundant, active, & happy throughout the entire spray period. This may be because it was relatively early in the season. This may also be because I sprayed in the evening, after most of pollinators had gone to sleep. And lastly, this may be because I used the mildest but still effective takedown solution -- just 1%. (And maybe all the clover in the yard helped too, by giving them a consistent alternative food source.) After the week of whitefly brew spraying ended, I did nothing (other than my nightly rotation of deer repellent spraying) for about 10 days. I still saw no evidence of whiteflies. Then I released beneficial insects: Ladybugs, which start eating right away; Lacewing eggs, which take a few days to a week to hatch & start eating; And, praying mantis eggs, which take weeks to hatch & start eating. I purchased enough beneficials to populate our entire yard and followed the directions for timing, conditions, etc for their release. A couple of notes: I opted not to use neem oil on the property because I had previously used it and it does not like begonias, bleeding hearts, fuscia and other somewhat delicate plants, all of which were liberally interspersed amidst my perennial beds and containers. I was VERY reluctant about using the takedown given my love of pollinators but I realized I had to make a tough call and decided the best course was to save my garden for the pollinators who would come by later in the season. I truly didn't expect so little impact on them during my spray period. I was very relieved to see them thriving the entire time! In addition, everything I read suggested it was best to use multiple beneficial insects so I opted to include praying mantis in the mix, despite the risk to some pollinators, concluding, again, that saving my garden overall was the better course. I also bought a bug blaster nozzle (Amazon has it) and a watering wand. The bug blaster delivers a 360 degree forceful spray of water. I'm not going to use it now, but it's here for next time. I want to see if alternating washing the plants during the day and spraying the plants in the evening will let me solve the problem using even less takedown. Stopping whiteflies takes real diligence, but it's doable! Good luck!

The place where I worked had a barn infested by bats and it was causing serious debris problems in a space we wanted to use for people. One night, we set up a watch all around the barn at the time when the bats came out. We were able to identify where the holes were that the bats were getting into. Then, another night after the bats left, we sealed the holes. End of problem. Killing whatever it is--bats, birds, squirrels, etc., and not sealing the holes where they are getting in will not solve the problem since new pests will just come in to replace the ones you killed. It's a bit of a pain to do this, but this is what you need to do to really solve your problem for good. Find out what it is and where it is getting in and out. Then you can come up with an effective solution.

Those pinholes do look like flea beetle damage but I haven't found any flea beetles. These beetles are much larger (about the size of a Japanese beetle) and fly, don't jump. I suspect they are causing the large holes in the peppers. They seemed to disappear after the rain, but they're back today. Hope these are better pix: Damage They seem to like to burrow in the bark mulch - I wonder if they came in with it, or maybe the grubs were in our soil anyway? I'm wondering if mulching with newspaper covered with grass clippings would be better? Though we have used bark mulch for years with no problem?