Tina, I copied and pasted the list from a post on another forum on GW. I want to add a plant to the list that I personally think should be on it. 4'oclocks should be there. Since I was a little girl, 4 o'clocks where the mainstay around my grandparents roses and anything else those ugly green beetles would attack. Never any damage to the roses or other plants except the 4 0'clocks. The stupid beetles would chew up some of the 4 o'clock leaves and we'd find tons of dead JP around the 4 o'clock plants and on the ground underneath them. Many of them where grown in 10-12 inch pots, 1-2 plants in a pot and grandma would move them around to various spots if she spotted the JP around. The 4 o'clock will just keep on growing more and more new leaves and bloom beautifully, even with holes in some of the leaves and JP would be history. Have been using them myself, in pots, for 28 years and have no JP problems. Recently doing a google search, I read that the leaves of the 4 o'clocks are poisonous to the JP. They are dumb enough to continue eating the leaves and die, and apparently when the JP are dead and dying, it keeps the others away from the gardens. Now for the list and plants that I've tried on it that have worked for me. BASIL, now know why the number of mosquitos by my front steps where very far and few between. 12 basil plants did the trick. What I don't know though, is if it is only sweet basil or any kind of basil. I had 5 sweet basil plants and the rest where thai, lemon, lime, cinammon. DILL That explains all the hundreds of wonderful insects that where around the yard. GARLIC? well had plenty of garlic chives and the aphids where no where to be found. they smell just like garlic so am going to try garlic chives around my lupin and see if that keeps the aphids away. MARIGOLD, Another old time favorite insect repellant from my grandpa. All his tomatoes and he had well over 100 plants on the veggie farm, had marigolds planted around them. The one thing he never worried about with them was any insect damage and he told me the reason was "they don't like that stinky smell of the marigolds". I've used them around my toms for 28 years. I grow them in huge pots and put a dwarf marigold seedling inside each pot, right at the edge of the pot. Never have had an insect problem with the toms, except the one little tiny tim that didn't get a marigold. That one ended up with the dreaded hornworm. Learned my lesson real quick and never made that mistake again. NASTURTIUM Where ever I had them planted last year, no slug problems. It was a bad year for slugs with more than a foot of rain that fell over 1 month last summer. We where collecting slugs in very low bowls full of beer every day. Now I know why the 2 beds that had nasturtium in them had no slugs or aphids for that matter ROSEMARY kept those mosquitos down around the back stairs, and the slugs out back too SAGE That explains why my neighbors front yard had no ticks, and the dog didn't get ticks when in the front yard but did in the back yard. She has at least 50 plants of just common sage planted around the front yard Fran

No. Cilantro and dill are from the same life conditions. Removing all the flowers and seeds will not prolong its growing more leaves. The leaves on Cilantro will not be tender and flat anymore and the leaves on the dill will turn brown and die, just as I stated before. For many years, I have grown all types of dill, and there is no way to get a longer season out of it, but to plant new seeds every 3 weeks or so. They do not translant from pots to a garden very well either as I stared before. Cilantro also works better if you do sucessive plantings of seeds. The thiner leaves of the bolting cilantro will be bitter and tough. Basil will bush out when the flower heads are pinched off, but even for that, the basil will start to get leggy and the bottom fleaves die out while the stems get woody. Cilantro needs cool weather and not much sun, especially f you attempt to grow it in summer. Two things can happen, it will either suddely die or will bolt and then die quickly. Dill, does not form branches beyond single fern leaves, and wil nt bush out, and neither will cilantro.

Can't see what the pests are. Are you certain that you followed the directions for the neem application? It should not be applied on hot, sunny days. Since you can see these critters, but we really can't...how about googling aphids to see if that's the problem.

Hi Scarleta - Maybe you could watch this year and see what time of year the spitbugs are "out". My memory tells me that its a pretty short time of year so maybe in the future you could plant out a little later and escape their spitty nastiness. I assume you are growing for the dill leaf?? I can't imagine spitbugs get up in the flower clusters much. Actually, our dill was ruined for pickling by aphids last year. We left the aphids for the ladybugs to deal with but the ladybugs don't get them all and the dead aphid bodies and other muck made the seed heads pretty unappetizing.