Are watermelons hard to pollinate naturally? I see bees and other flying insects in the garden, although in truth I never see them on the watermelons.... After seeing your answer, I tried hand pollination....I took a very fine camel hair paintbrush and swirled it around in each flower, several times, about 15 flowers in all, several seconds in each flower, trying to gently force the camel hairs into the tightly packed stuff at the center of each bloom. I went from end to end, back and forth doing each flower twice. When finished the paintbrush was covered in yellow pollen. Am I doing it correctly, do you think?

Keepitlow, I'm not sure they're increasing on a global scale, it's just that societies are much more mobile now, and bring pests along with them, so that there is a larger diversity of pests here. A couple more imported pests that come to mind are Japanese beetles introduced in the early 1900s, and the very recently introduced spotted wing drosophila fly. Once introduced, it has generally taken a long time for some of these pests to become omnipresent. Codling moth, even though introduced with the first settlers, didn't find it's way to Kansas until 1850. Japanese beetles, even though introduced 90 years ago, are still not found in all KS counties today. However, in the future with our society even more mobile, it may take less time for these newly introduced pests to fully disseminate. OFM has become more of a problem due to mutation. Originally it was exclusively a stone fruit pest. In recent years it has become a pest in commercial apple orchards as well. I've also read it can be a problem in some home orchards where there are lots of stone fruit and apples planted together. To the naked eye, the larva are indistinguishable from CM. Lastly, introduced pests are not limited to fruit. Bedbugs have been practically unheard of here for half a century. Remember the old adage, "sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite"? That came from a time when people slept on hanging rope beds. Bedbugs could be somewhat thwarted by tightening up the ropes to prevent the bed from touching the floor. In recent times some hotels (even nice ones) have had problems with bedbugs being reintroduced from overseas travelers. That'd be a case where I'm going to kill some nature, and feel really good about it.

Hi Jannie, You have botrytis problems. You need to clean up the area around the plant - and cut the rotted flowers and discard them. Do not recycle any part of the plant. Good Luck, L.T TRAN www.thepeonystore.com

Sounds like Blossom End Rot, abbreviated BER. Read about it in the Tomato FAQ http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/tomato/ Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato FAQ