For me, aphids are about the easiest thing to deal with. Yeah, the ants heard my aphids (which is kinda cool), but neither the ants, nor the aphids are a match for the simple garden hose. You can also use insecticidal soap (which is what you were alluding to, though I donÂt have the recipe) How did you purchase the trees? As bare root 1/2" type trees? Or perhaps bigger potted trees from a nursery? If it's the former, you certainly shouldn't let the trees bear this year. I suspect the trees will drop the apples anyway. In this case, Sevin wouldn't be a problem. If it's the latter, depending on how big the tree is, you could try leaving on 1 or 2 apples. I did this with my larger first year granny smith. But, be careful of not thinning a young tree enough. A couple years later, I only thinned to 50%, and the tree took the next year off (it went into a biannual production cycle). Good idea about the ant stake Harvestman. Have you actually tried that? Do the ants go back down at night where they'd encounter it? -Glenn

Derbyka- You don't have to hand pollinate squash, at least I never do. Same with the community gardens, nobody is hand pollinating anything and still get a lot of different squash. The humidity and rains here in Florida makes a lot of disease for the plants but as long as we get some harvest, it is okay. Jamie - Thank you and I wish that I had a magic elixir for plants,lol. Some citrus are kind of dwarf, I have a 3 year calamondin that is very small compare to others I had, but still produces a lot of fruit for its size and I am happy about that because I could not use more if I had. For a 2 year old tree started from seeds I think your lime is of a good size, just keep a good schedule for fertilizer and water. Starting end of February I put small amounts of fertilizer every month during the warmer months. Silvia

I'm having some similar issues. My peppers are all in the garden, not in pots. I have hot bananas, red chili, cayenne and yellow bell. The bell pepper has very curly/crinkly leaves. The larger leaves have cracked on the edges from wrinkling so much. It's putting out blossoms but they are very brittle. I barely touched one today because I was trying to brush off an aphid (they haven't been a real problem, just one here and there) and the blossom and it's little stem just fell off. That's the second one. This is my first year growing peppers. Is that normal? They are in a combination of the rich mix I got from a supplier in OKC and cotton bur compost. I added about a 3 inch layer of MG garden soil for vegetables. I only mixed in the compost because the rich mix was WAY too sandy. Won't be buying it from that place again. I think now I should have done something different, but I didn't know at the time so I just picked more of what the supplier said they used in theirs. The garden gets full sun from about 10am until late evening and they've all been planted since late March. Maybe it got too cold for them for a bit? The cayennes are starting to wrinkle like the bell and the banana pepper plant is yellowing. I have used some organic tomato fertilizer because it's all I had. I just used way less than I did for the tomatoes. It seemed to help slow down the yellowing but it hasn't gone away. I used sea weed fertilizer once right after planting. Should I just keep using that? I don't want to give them too much nitrogen though and not get a good crop. Or should I go get a different kind of compost to mix in? I have composter but the stuff I've thrown into it isn't ready just yet. All of the pepper plants have buds on them. Should I pick those off? The cayennes are only about 5 inches tall. The banana is about 8 inches. The bell is over a foot so I figured I'd leave those. I just don't know why they fall off so easily. If they're that delicate, how can they hold a pepper as it's growing? Any advice would be great. Thanks! Oh, and I'm in OKC in zone 7

Can you give us a close up picture of one of the leaves? it my not be a virus. because as far as i could tell you don't have the Yellowing patterns in the leaf veins. But on an another note. how tall is the plants from the black bags. is the plants shorter than the rest? if so "or maybe" the bags might be getting hot and that type of plant my not like 120+ degrees of hot air or steam coming up from the bottom. another case might be over watered "wet soil" I live here in Fl and recently its been raining its butt off an gets hot mid day then lots of clouds and rain. as you can see on my JHC has the same problem on some leaves on the plant. both old and new. and I know its not the virus because of all the fruit I have gotten off of it last year and this year. She doesn't like to much water and then it becomes a steaming pot during the day. Also my bhut is right next to her "as you can see on the left and has no signs of distress even tho most of her leaves are way above the pot. anyways thats just my 2 cents :) I hope I was helpful in some way