Tom: Are you sure the neighbor's tree is not infested? Have you actually looked closely at his fruit? Maybe the neighbor sprays or picks up his fruit drops so there are not so many flies hatching out under his tree. There can be some variety differences, but when two trees so close together differ so much in the level of insect damage, there is usually something else in play. The spray you use is very much your own decision, based on what you can find and what is most effective in your area. Local advice would be better than mine. I use Imidan early for two or three sprays to get the apples up to thinning and bagging size, but Permethrin would be an acceptable and very effective substitute in most cases. But since I bag my apples, I am able to stop spraying very early in the season. If you don't do that, you will have to find something you are comfortable using all season long on about a 10 day schedule. Apple maggot is a later infestation than the plum curculio and codling moth I deal with by early sprays, and if you bagged your apples after thinning you might not have to spray at all, since you don't seem to have a problem with the other insects. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Ok maybe it is an excuse to post - yet another - pic of my favourite but I do strongly recommend Pinus mugo 'Sherwood Compact'. Simply because it has so much character with it's stout needles and sea green colour whilst remaining a slow and, as the name suggests, compact mounder. Pinus mugo 'Sherwood Compact'

Suzie, You're welcome. My garden is roughly 10,000 square feet but its size is hard to figure because it isn't a square or rectangular box. It is actually several separate plots of land, and the biggest portion of it is bordered by the woods on the north side, a grove of trees on the west side, and the driveway on the south side. It curves to go around trees, and a big mound of clay that is worthless and which I'd love to have removed, and a little pond for the wildlife. When we fenced it, it took 400' linear feet of fencing, but because it isn't a nice square garden, it really isn't 100' by 100'. It looks like a garden designed by a person who'd been drinking. I should have just hired a guy with a bulldozer to flatten everything to the ground, but I wanted to preserve mature trees and shrubs for the wildlife....so what we have is a crazy garden tucked into a clearing in the woods with fencelines that meander around trees, shrubs, cacti (even they shriveled up and were really dessicated last year), a berm and a pond. I have several smaller garden plots that are more squared off and normal looking, and I grow lots in containers...I have 60 tomato plants in containers, though I am tired of watering them and about to let them go. They're really struggling in all these 100-degree-plus days. I grow so much because I use wide rows 4' to 5' wide with 12-18" pathways, although I confess that the plants spill over into the pathways. I also grow vertically on every bit of the garden fence I possibly can, which explains why I have cantaloupes hanging up there 8' above the ground at the top of the fence. Tomorrow I am going to climb a ladder to harvest the beans growing next to them, and while I am up there I am going to put slings up to support the cantaloupes. Today (and I am laughing at myself here) I found a Moon and Stars watermelon growing on a fence about 4' above the ground. The issue with that is that Moon and Stars is a huge melon. Usually I just plant the little mini-watermelons by the fence and they do just fine when grown vertically. I'm going to have to figure out how to support the Moon and Stars melon as it enlarges. I didn't think I had any Moon and Stars melons in that specific garden plot. It is the Three Sisters Garden with 'Texas Honey June Corn', 'Seminole ' and 'Old Timey Corn Field' pumpkins, 'Worchester Indian Red' Lima Bean, and Red Ripper southern peas. I'm not sure if I planted a watermelon plant there or if it is a volunteer from compost. When I saw the plant climbing the fence a couple of weeks ago, I shrugged and wondered if it was going to be 'Black Tail Mountain' or 'Yellow Baby'. Well it is neither. It has the moons and stars of 'Moon and Stars' so I am sure that's what it is. I do remember squeezing in some birdhouse gourds on the other fence, and a few leftover gourd plants and okra plants at the east end. In the spot where the watermelon is growing? Well, I have Kebarika bush beans there. So, apparently there's a melon there. All of the above explains how I don't plant rows so much as I plant groupings that fill up the space both vertically and horizontally. Even when it is unplanned, it happens. In the big garden my Seminole Pumpkins have escaped from their bed and run 20' eastward, but they aren't growing on the ground. No, that would be too simple. They are running across the tops of the tomato cages of the 'Indigo Rose' tomatoes. Apparently while I was busy canning during the whole month of June, plants began running amok in the garden. Tim can't even see me when I'm in the garden, so he stands at the gate and hollers my name. My cats sometimes hunt me down but often they just walk up and down the adjacent driveway meowing. I tried Square Foot Garden and it was only okay for me. I just am not that structured and regimented in the way I do things, and I felt some of the plant spacing didn't work well in our hot climate, especially with big monster tomato plants. So, after reading John Jeavons book (linked below) I began planting and interplanting using his spacing and find I can get about 4 times the yield I got from traditional row spacing years and years ago. Here's a quick example of how you can get more from your garden. I planted three rows of tomato plants, with each row being about 18' long and with 4' in between the rows. In the middle of that 4', I planted rows of bush beans. The bush beans had matured and had been harvested before the tomato plants were 4' tall, and after that, I yanked out the bean plants and the tomatoes filled in all that space. I often do the same things with carrots, lettuce and radishes underneath tomato plants like a ground cover. It is a way to get multiple crops from one space. I grow all my melons under okra plants. I grow most all my vining crops on trellises and fences. Often the pole beans will climb not only the fences, but any tomato cages or okra or corn plants within reach. I work really hard to get the most from every square inch of space. I always think the garden looks great in May because it is green, lush and yet still soemwhat orderly. Then June arrives and the heat brings explosive growth (as long as there is moisture) and it gets rowdy, wild and out-of-control and becomes a jungle. I continue working night and day to manage the harvest, and likely will make the last salsa tomorrow. I've been running the dehydrator almost 24/7 and may finish drying the Principe Borghese tomatoes this week. After that, there likely won't be that many more tomatoes to harvest and dry at once, although every now and then I get a bunch of SunGolds at one time. I'm sort of moving on now, beyond tomatoes to peppers, trading in salsa-making and other fabulous tomato products for candied jalapenos peppers, jalapenos rings, Habanero Gold jelly and jalapeno jelly. I've also been busy making pickles. Today I made Spicy Pickles using a Mrs. Wage's spice mix that includes jalapenos. I think Tim is going to love these hot, spicy pickles, but they may be too hot for me. Tim looked at the counter a few days ago, with rows of tomato products (Pasta Sauce, Chili Base and Pizza Sauce) lined up neatly in their pint jars while I was trying to figure out where to put them and said "it's starting to look like you're a Doomsday Prepper". I told him no, that I was just a gardener who didn't want to waste a bit of the harvest. Doomsday Prepper indeed! (I do enjoy watching the show, but I am not one of those folks.) My Roma/Villawear tomato press/strainer is one reason I can so much stuff. Without it, the whole process is too time-consuming. With it, I can whip out batch after batch of stuff in the blink of an eye. I never would can this much if I had to peel tomatoes. If I never, ever again have to drop tomatoes into boiling water to begin the tomato-peeling process, I'll be a happy camper. Insanity reigns at our house this year--both in the garden and in the kitchen, but I am having a lot of fun (tiring fun) and getting oodles of food put up. The deep freeze is about 2/3s full, and I will finish filling it up (hopefully!) with okra, frozen peppers and mid- and late-season corn. My big worry has been that fires would start up and would take me away from the kitchen. Now that the tomato preservation is about done, I can relax and not worry much about that. We have had fires, but just not big, out-of-control ones like we had last year, and I've only had to leave in the middle of canning one time, and it wasn't at a critical time when I shouldn't leave. I have my eye on a place behind the garage where I want to be able to plant corn and pumpkins, but the soil needs massive work. I scatter sowed (with no tilling) a deer/wildlife plot mixture there last fall and it all seemed to grow well. This spring when Tim cut it, he came in and told me the turnips had grown entirely above ground. I told him that turnips will pop up like that, similar to onions sometimes (at least in our clay they do) and he told me they'd never been in the ground. I didn't believe him and went out to see...and there they were lying sideways on top of the hard clay soil. I cannot even imagine how much work we'd have to do to make that soil suitable for growing anything, but if we managed to do it, that would give me 1800 more square feet to play with. Dawn

Yikes! I agree with Jean that removal and replacement makes the most sense at this stage of infestation. For the future, scale insects don't build up a population like that overnight. This looks like a looooooong time in the making, as in years. Occasional inspection of your plants can be really helpful in spotting a problem before it ends up like this. The tiny white bumps, by the way, are the newest generation of the same kind of insect.