Some will tell you that all ants are beneficials, do no harm and are your friends. I say B.S. Fire ants in particular are bad. Even those little black ants have killed any number of my plants by making a nest amongst the plant roots. They did not eat on the plant, but tunneled out all around them so that they could not take up moisture and nutrients, basically starving the plant to death. Some varieties may do little more than be a nuisance in stinging you if you stand too long in their area or trying to get into your house. There are any number of insects that eat the surface off leaves leaving the veins and in some cases looking like you describe. You would just have to inspect them closely a few times per day, or until you find which ones are doing that. Good luck in identifying and handling your problem. Bill P.

If you search DTM (days to maturity) here you'll find many discussions about this but basically DTM is from day of transplanting for those varieties that are normally grown from transplants. So a 60 DTM transplant such as a tomato plant is 60 days from setting out. It is from the day of seeding for the items that are commonly direct seeded. As often mentioned here DTM is nothing more than a very general guideline and should not be construed as anything more than that - a very general guideline. Dave

Oh what fun, snakes in the bed. My elderly neighbor is afraid of the garter snakes in the yard. You can hear her scream all the way to the moon if she sees one. Funny thing with my daughter, she teaches genetics and microbiology in HS. They have to do stuff with flies and that doesn't bother her at all, CAUSE THE D##N THINGS ARE DEAD, SO SHE CLAIMS. She was visiting her roommate from college last summer, the roommate is from Florida and lives there now since graduation. One night the phone rang and on the other end of the phone was her old roommate and all I could hear was my daughter screaming at the top of her lungs. Roomie says, "just wanted you to get a good laugh, she's staring down a huge palmetto bug and it's so funny." I was laughing for days. Must admit though, I kind of freak if a see a spider, but have a good reason. I'm allergic to spider bites, you don't want to see what happens if I get one. That's why I'm not allowed to prune any bushes that will have my face near or in the bush. One bit on my forehead or around my eye and the eye is swollen shut for 2 weeks and massive infections. OH yes, freeze those malva seeds too. Weevils and their eggs die in there too. Alison, you are crazy. Didn't you know that part of the definition of a gardener is crazy? Think about it, we try to beat mother nature by growing things that the 4 legged critters love to chew up, we die of the heat, sweat like you know what, water, water, water, all to try and have beautiful flowers in our gardens. Half the time we loose the battle with mother nature. Now we've become addicted to seed trading, Winter sowing, and we have even more seeds to start. For Pete's sake, we are outside in the freezing cold in the winter, climbing through snow to put containers full of dirt with seeds in them outside to "germinate when mother nature says to germinate" and you wonder if you're nuts. Yup, we're all nuts, and love every minute of it, don't we? Fran

My onions never fully top down like the texts describe. They are usually green and growing through the end of summer. So I usually pull them in the end of august at the start of a sunny dry stretch. Spread them out on the lawn for a few days to "cure" then hang them in the basement to finish curing. Since you don't really have the option of setting them in the sun now, I would jut pull them and tie them up somewhere so they can cure. Which is essentially drying out. Make sure to eat the ones with the thickest necks first and any that started to flower. These will not store as long.