Do we have ants! They are probably the worst foe in my garden. We are blessed with Argentine ants - little things that bite - (must be mostly mouth). The biggest threat is to the citrus trees. I know they do a certain amount of pollinating, but I prefer to have it done by something else - bees or small wasps, perhaps. The young citrus trees are most vulnerable. The ants use aphids like "cows" - carrying them up the trees to the leaves, as they can't ingest the plant juices themselves, they use the aphids to do it for them. They then "milk" the aphid and carry the juice back to the nest, where an "obliging" ant makes itself a jug to hold the incoming juices. Fascinating world - the ant colony. For the gardener tho - the ant does a dual role - moving the soil to keep it porous, but also attacking the plant via the aphids. As mentioned, this causes plant diseases for the gardener. Californians spend large sums of money every year controlling the ants - mainly from their immediate presence inside their homes. My first encounter, came about when I left a doughnut on the kitchen table overnight. The next morning, the ants were completely covering the table with a line that stretched yards and yards back to their nest. I had honestly never seen anything quite like it in the cold climate I was used to. I ran to my new neighbor - who laughed, then quietly took out a can of insecticide and after an application or two, the ants had retreated/died. Since then, I have learned to cope - it is necessary to be quite clean in the kitchen, or to employ an exterminator - early in the ant season to spray around the perimeter of the house. They prefer certain things at certain times - like early in the year - seemingly sweet stuff, later when rearing offspring, they seem to like protein stuff - meat, cheese, swatted flies, etc. When warm weather sets in, they are around the water faucets. But - the big threat - is in the garden, just when everything is going well - early summer - then they become active on veggies, and fruit trees. The citrus is especially attractive. I found a simple trick that seems to work - by wrapping some duct tape around the tree trunk, them lathering some Tanglefoot around the tape, seems to stop the little buggers from climbing the tree. If they can't reach the leaves with their little "cow" aphids, they won't affect the tree. They aren't quite as active on the vegetables, except corn (which I stopped trying to grow anyway). I did note a real decrease in ants this year - I believe it is due to the many, many little lizards that adopted my back yard this year. I've read about frogs eating insects, but we have few frogs (no rain to speak of), but the lizard seems to have taken up the role - and for some reason, we have fewer ants. So - are ants friend or foe? - yes, but they really need to be confined, just as so many other predators in the garden/home environment. P.S. In all due respect to my southern neighbors, who try to deal with the Red ant - no thank you, don't need em. My sympathies anyway. Just my 2 c's. Bejay

OMG! In my beds these guys are definitely destructive! I noticed them moving in last year and this year they are literally piled up on top of one another! However, I don't think this species cares to much for grasshopper eggs! I noticed them pretty late last year in the season where they were sitting on the Calendula flowers, but didn't see any damage. This year (especially in the last month)I really started to see all of the damage. They are eating all of the flowers and many of which haven't even had the chance to fully open. At first they were only after the Calendula...hundreds of flowers in all stages with as many as 4 beetles per flower. Not one flower without a minimum 1 beetle! Now it's any flower that is orange, yellow, red-orange or a combination of all ....Black-eyed Susan, Marigold, Blanket Flower, Tithonia, Coreopsis, Sunflower, etc!!! I'll be lucky to harvest seeds from any of these this year. How in the world do I get control back here?! I have A LOT of area to cover :O HELP please! Thanks, Vera PS...even the Praying Mantid's (and there are many) can't keep up! PSS Here is a link to google images of these beetles..... Here is a link that might be useful: Black Blister Beetle (google images)

I'm almost 100% certain #3 is Horseweed (Conyza canadensis). It's one of those weeds that changes shape and form as it ages. In other words it starts out looking very different than it ultimately will look like when it blooms. I was just Googling images for this one and found tons of 'em at all stages of development. I have it my garden. It's easy to pull, but it seems to be around every year no matter what I do. Kevin

First of all...take a deep breath! Now exhale........ I think it is a predatory mite. I see them ( or something very similar) often on my deck outside where I keep my plants in summer, but never on my plants. They are fast little critters! I have not had any problems I can attribute to them. Btw, it was forecast to snow here today, but hasn't yet... I did have to scrape my windshield this morning for the first time, however.