Thanks for your respones, I appreciate your knowledge. This is the first time I have grown okra in over 15 years and I am anxious to enjoy a mess of fried okra. I is one of my favorite vegetables and it is very difficult to find good okra in the supermarkets in my area. I have planted 10 Emerald and 3 Clemsen Spineless 80 and numbered each plant. I plan to keep production records and keep seed for the best producer. Sue Ellen

I've asked several arborist as well as UH via Urban Garden help line. Thats the woman arborist who said all of her trees died from the beetle roaches. They all pretty much said to keep area free of debris. Some of them suggested spraying the tree with water to get the bugs off but seriously the trees are 35-40 feet tall so using any type of spray would only go up 5-6 feet. No one can give me good suggestions to rid the trees of these buggers. I've used Spectracide on the lawn and under the trees because the bugs have been coming into the house for almost a year now and driving us crazy! It seems to have worked since we're seeing less bugs but more than likely most all of our trees will die eventually. Oh well.

Saintpfla, I'm no expert, I'm learning too. I was hoping someone else would chime in but you need to post a picture if possible. FWIW, my plants don't look good either, lots of leaves dying off and I just can't get control of the Downey mildew but it doesn't sound like we're having the same problem. I did better last season with the containers sitting above ground, vs. now having the containers sitting in their in-ground bunkers where its easier for soil contaminants to transfer into the container soil even though there is space between the two container soils. I just picked a dozen cukes off the Spacemasters but not sure how much longer they will last, and while I have quite a few small cukes on the Bush Champion those plants look even worst that the Spacemasters.... This has got me thinking about moving the cukes completely off the ground. Tony had grown some upside down cukes and said they did well but it looks like he's pulled the pictures so I can't post them. Otherwise, I may just continue to use the short vine varieties and get them five feet off the ground in racks and just let gravity do the trick.

Jay, Well, until this week I would have said all "my" hornworms were hanging out in SW Kansas, but then a few more showed up here, so we know that is not true. When we have a bad hornworm year here, I usually start seeing them in March or April and I am not as kind to the very early ones because you know they could strip my seedlings bare before they can grow. I try to catch them very small in the earliest spring and feed them to the chickens. Once the hornworms are 4" long or so, the chickens won't touch them either. And, you're right, no one had better get in my way for the rest of the week. I am so far behind on garden work, and on putting up produce, that I am not putting up with any nonsense from anyone. LOL The break in the weather is rejuvenating both the garden and me. I worked in the garden for 4 hours this morning because the cool temperatures were too lovely to pass up. I didn't see any hornworms or blister beetles today, and only one stinkbug, so that added to my good mood. This afternoon, I'll be trying to work my way through a huge mound of tomatoes and peppers. I'm going to can most of the peppers, and maybe make some jalapeno jelly, and then roast some big tomatoes and boil them down to make sauce, and dehydrate a few hundred smaller ones. If I finish all that today, then tomorrow I'll get the onions into the cellar for long-term storage, dig potatoes, pick several dozen sweet peppers and put them up, and pick black-eyed peas. The melons are coming in at the rate of one or two a day, but we eat them about as fast as I pick them. Your ongoing drought seems like it has really contributed to the insect problem this year. I know we always have more pests in drought years, and they are just relentless. Your coworker who hasn't had a single hornworm will have some soon enough. I don't think I've ever had a year with absolutely none. His turn will come. (Not that I am wishing them upon him or anything!) Dawn