Yes it does have a short half-life and an insecticidal life or 3-10 days. That is far far shorter than MANY other highly used insecticides. Certainly not 15 years as I have seen claimed before. As previously stated, we have a full community of insects in our plants, and in our soil, and we use it to control Japanese Beetle damage during the 6 weeks or so the adults are present. ENVIRONMENTAL FATE Carbaryl has a short residual life on treated crops. The insecticide remains at the application site, where it is slowly taken into the plant and metabolized. Insecticidal properties are retained for 3-10 days. Loss of carbaryl is due to evaporation and uptake into plants. Breakdown by sunlight does not appear to be significant. Degradation of carbaryl in the soil is mostly due to sunlight and bacterial action. It is bound by organic matter and can be transported in soil runoff. Carbaryl has a half-life of 7 days in aerobic soil and 28 days in anaerobic soil (9). Degradation of carbaryl in crops occurs by hydrolysis inside the plants. It has a short residual life of less than two weeks. The metabolites of carbaryl have lower toxicity to humans than carbaryl itself. The breakdown of this substance is strongly dependant on acidity and temperature. Here is a link that might be useful: carbaryl, A.K.A. Sevin

I just went through this list the other day (difficult in the format it was in) and I have a question. The revision says 2004 - are there not more names that should be added? If so, does anyone know what they would be?

You're welcome, Sammy. I haven't even reviewed the list myself, and it is an old list. I suspect I still grow some of the plants on the list now, but I also know that I have found even more that produce great here since 2008. With thousands of varieties to choose from, we have many options, and most of them will perform here in a typical year. It can be harder to get great production in an extremely dry year or an extremely hot year, especially if the heat arrives early. One factor that seems to matter more than the variety selection is simply getting them planted early enough that they have plenty of time to set fruit before the heat arrives. Brandywine Sudduth's is still my own personal favorite, but it produces erratically---great in cooler, rainier years and not very well at all in hot, dry ones. I tend to grow it anyway most years on the chance that maybe this year will be the year a cool, rainy spring helps it be very productive. Although it wasn't on my Grow List for this year, I saw them in a store yesterday and promptly bought two. I probably jinxed myself by buying them and we'll probably have an insanely hot spring, but I hope that doesn't happen.

Hi Emmerick - Such a neat little light setup you have there in your office. And I like the orchid in front of the window. What is to the left of the orchid? Interesting varieties. I looked up Ruby King Red pepper and Seed Savers has it. I like that company. Have you grown it long? I’m always looking for a new pepper variety. I’m growing Jimmy Nardello, Carmen, Odessa Market, and Gilboa. They’re all new to me this year. Nice to have a greenhouse. Yellow onion of Parma - another Seed Savers. I had forgotten about that company, actually, since discovering FEDCO, but I’ll have to check them out again. Your onion seedlings look great! Red Mammoth is a nice cabbage. I tried a miniature last year, called ‘Gonzales’. There’s only two of us at home and I am the one that enjoys cabbage. I loved it! They only took up about 10 inches of space, and were the size of softballs. One cabbage made one large bowl of cole slaw with no leftovers. I’m growing it again this year. I wish I could find a miniature red cabbage. I love Concord grapes. It reminds me of my childhood, we had a neighbor who grew them. They make great jelly. Potting up babies, is something I never do, but since you have gardening clients, I can see the advantage of that. I love the idea of dividing and increasing what I have, and it always goes on my to do list for spring, but I have too many jobs on the list and dividing seems to always be a lower priority and I don’t always get to it. I have a small collection of epimedium that I hope to divide this spring. I would love to double the number of plants I have. It will be a higher priority this year. I haven’t tried potatoes yet. One of these years I will. I’ve heard the fingerlings and the purples are great. Love the names of your varieties. You are already in gardening mode, indoors? Do you still have snow?