It is the "normal" time of year for harvest of the Bearrss limes; they have more juice if you leave them until they start to turn yellow. If, instead of pulling them off, if you cut them with a little piece of stem remaining on the fruit they will last much longer. Same thing for Meyers. I would cut one and see if it is "ready". Even if it is ready to harvest, you could leave the rest on the tree until you want to use them; no need to harvest them all at once; but you should harvest them before the end of the year, or the next bloom in the early Spring will produce less fruit.

The first one looks just like my mystery plant we identified earlier! Isn't that funny? Looks just like it, and it was concluded that it was Miss Jessie (See Mysterious Barb Posting). No clue about your second...

For the Okra with the ants, I had a similar problem with ants farming aphids on my Okra and they would also chew on the pods as well. I simply put some petroleum jelly around the stem of the plant, the ants don't like to cross anything gewy like that. You might have to repeat the process every few weeks as the jelly wears away. There is also a product called tree tanglefoot that can be used the same way but it is really sticky and hard to wash off your hands. Anyway, I did the petroleum jelly thing on my okra last year and managed to get some good pods. This year I have not bothered with the petroleum jelly and there are still lots of ants working the okra but I'm still managing to get plenty of good pods. Just be careful as you pick so you don't get bit by the ants. As to the squash, the powdery mildew is very common among all plants of that family (cucumbers, pumpkins, zuchini, mellons etc.) I have actually tried out the milk/water to battle it but found out that the baking soda or the milk water cures are actually meant against downy mildew which will be stopped by the change in pH. For help against the powdery mildew, you would be better off spraying with seaweed extract (something like Maxicrop perhaps) because powdery mildew tends to attack potassium deficient plants. I have to admit that this summer/fall I have had a horrible time with all plants in that family and not gotten more than a couple cucumbers and no squash. I'm dealing with leaf footed bugs, stink bugs, squash bugs, squash vine borers, and lots of little green caterpillars that eat the leaves off the seedlings. I'm about to give up on them and try for an early crop in the spring when hopefully there won't be so many pests. (I've not sprayed anything this summer/fall and I'm not really planning to.) Spraying with neem oil may help some for either of your problems since it is an organic way to battle scale and it is supposed to help some against powdery mildew. Here is a link that might be useful: TCLynx

Well, as a little update, I think I figured out what my NOT 'Mme Platz' actually is. The blooms opened white, and looked a lot like those on the baby 'Mme Hardy' I got for the cemetery. But the rest of the plant was totally different. I checked alphabetically, and I'm almost certain that what I got is 'Mme Plantier'. And that's a good thing, because I was considering it for the cemetery, anyway, but didn't order it. So one less for me, one more for them. I'm not contacting RVR about a replacement, since the error is something I'd have wanted, anyway. On a related note, the second error from RVR arrived with the tag 'Duchesse de Rohan', but the plant looked a bit odd, being rather stiffly upright and showing China-influenced-but-still-OGR foliage. Then it sent forth flower buds, which began a deep dark purple-tinged red, opening "old rose red". Looking through the alphabetical list again, I think it's 'Duchesse d'Ossuna', which was another I was eyeing but didn't actually order. So, again, since the error turned out in my favor, I'm keeping it, and will re-order the other eventually without mentioning the mix-up. :-) ~Christopher