Hey Michael, Ah, those darn mealy..they're the worst. Examine your citrus thoroughly, Michael. Mealy hide between stems, under leaves and of course on top of leaves. Other pests are scale (armored bumps that can be scraped off) Spider mites, which are really tiny, but they, like the common spider, weave fine webbs. And more obvious pests are whitefly..when you touch the foliage a spray full of these white bugs fly around the plant then return to leaves. But since you've been having problems w/mealy, I'd keep an eye out for them. They're great at hiding..Do leaves feel sticky? Are you finding white cottony white patches? Wood burning stove..Ah, now that's a source of heat that will dry out a room in no time..Good thing you got the humidifer. How about air circulation? Wet soil, dry air, and stuffiness invites pests. Do you have a ceiling fan in the room? If so, keep on low during winter months. Or if it's not too cold outside, crack a window a bit a few hours per day, that is unless it's freezing. What type of Miracle GRo are you using, Michael? I believe MG sells a type for citrus..It was either MG or Miracid for citrus and avacados. Of course you can buy citrus fertilizer, too or even Azalea fertilizer which I think works great..it comes in granualar and needs applications every three months..but it's best reading instructions. All brands are different. When I leach soil, (either by using hose or sink) I water moving in a circular motion until water seeps from the drainage holes. Depening on your water pressure, I'd say 1-2 mins. Or more.. I'm also a firm believer in misting plants..Some people do and some deem it a waste of time..This is up to you of course. I notice a difference when I get lazy and stop. How tall is your tree? What size is its pot? What type of soil are you using? Proper watering is very important..You don't want soggy soil, especially in winter when days are short. Good drainage is also important. And pots w/drainage holes. What state do you reside? Toni

Game bird, What you just described is simply what gardening in Oklahoma is like sometimes. Gardening here can be like a roller coaster at an amusement park....there's ups and downs and all sorts of twists and turns and sometimes it is fun, and other times it is not. We have a very long growing season so we get multiple generations of all kinds of pests....and a huge variety of diseases that seem to ebb and flow depending on the weather. As soon as you deal with one issue, another one pops up. It can be very frustrating, but normally you'll get pretty good production out of your plants in spite of the pests and diseases. Beans sometimes stall in hot weather and often they will put out new growth and start looking better when the weather breaks, or they get a good watering, or they get fed or something happens that relieves their stress a little. Often, if you have yellowing on the lower leaves, that can be a sign of heat stress, and they'll improve and put out new growth higher up on the plant above the yellowing leaves. as they recover from the stress. The lower leaves that turn yellow often fall off or you can cut them off the plants if looking at them bothers you. Yellowing leaves on bean plants also can be a symptom of low fertility (which I doubt is what is happening in your case because of all that manure), wet soil, dry soil, spider mites (in that case, you'd have tiny red spots on the backs of the leaves--those are the mites--and some webbing on the leaves) or nematodes (in sandy soil only). I have the best success with bush beans that are planted very early--in late March or early April so they can produce before the heat arrives, and with pole beans that are planted in mid-summer for fall production. My beans just sit and stall once we're in the upper 90s/lower 100s day after day, so I don't expect much from them in July and the first half of August. During that hot time, it is the southern peas (black-eyed peas, crowder peas, cream peas,etc.) that are producing. Some plants outgrow the mosaic virus if insects aren't spreading it from leaf to leaf, or some produce in spite of the plants having it. Scarlet runner beans really don't like our heat, so mine put out their best growth in April through mid-June most years, then grow more slowly in the heat of the summer and then tend to put out a big flush of growth when cooler temps return in the fall. Yours may or may not perform the same way. Cutworms are an issue here, but I have found them to be the worst during a "new" garden's first year or two. I suspect they are already there in the soil and are deliriously happy about the improved soil and new plants. With careful attention and the use of some anti-worm techniques (like spraying your seedlings with Bt and tilling up your garden once or twice during cold weather to expose them to the surface so they'll die), you can get them under control. One problem with the southern cutworms is that they can climb the plants and cut them off up to maybe a half-inch or inch above the ground, whereas up north they often cut them off at or below ground level. I don't use cutworm collars. I just use toothpicks. I keep a box in my garden tool bucket and whenever I have new seedlings, I stick two tootpicks in the ground as close to the plant as I can. The cutworm has to completely encircle the plant to cut it off, so with half a toothpick below ground and half above, they can't completely encircle it, and I figure two toothpicks makes it twice as safe as one toothpick would. The only way to keep critters out of your garden is to have a fence around it that they can't breach. It has taken us years to arrive at that point because every time we thought we had a "critter-proof" fence, one critter or another eventually found a way to go over it, under it, or through it. I have two neighbors here who've gardened much longer than I have and they still have critter problems because they won't fix their fence problems. That's their choice, of course, but I am so much happier when I don't have to worry about walking outside and finding 4 deer in the garden like I used to. The only animal that still plagues us is raccoons because they can climb the two entry arbors, so I am planning to take out the entry arbors and just replace them with gates....maybe screen doors reinforced with woven wire.....and 2' of fencing above the top of the screen doors. That may or may not solve the raccoon problem, but we've already "conquered" deer, rabbits, moles, voles, gophers, bobcats, skunks, possums, armadilloes, and coyotes....so, surely, we'll eventually manage to keep the raccoons out too. And I don't suppose we'll ever manage to keep the venomous snakes out of the garden, but as long as the cats keep the rodents under control, the snakes don't come into the garden much any more. One fencing tip I'll pass on now is that you need two gates at opposite sides of the garden. That way, if a creature like a deer, skunk or venomous snake wanders in through one gate while you're in the garden, you can promptly exit throught the other. You can just imagine how I learned this important garden lesson! With all the insect pests, the reality is that no matter what you do, your garden IS an ecosystem and it is going to be inhabited by all kinds of creatures. So, you just have to do the best you can to attract beneficial insects, birds and reptiles because they'll keep at least 75% of the pest insects under control once you've got enough beneficials. My garden is full of all kinds of insects and bugs, but I'd say 95% of them do not do enough damage to impact the harvest because I have a good balance between the herbivore insects that eat my plants and the carnivore insects who eat the herbivore insects. This has been a harder than average year in terms of late cold weather and heavy spring rains slowing down planting and plant growth, but that's just how it goes sometimes. What keeps us going? Probably the hope that next year will be "better" and the acknowlegement that we enjoy gardening as a process, and the harvest is just the bonus....the gravy.....the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae. Dawn

Well, I finally found something to kill the Aphids on my pepper plants. A bit too late though, unfortunately. :-\ I lost three plants. The Epsom Salts worked fine for the leaf curl, by the way. I now have three plants remaining that have healthy new growth with no derned curled leaves or aphids!!! =) I got upset when I lost the three & kind of planted the rest of my seeds...lol...so, I imagine I'll have 10-30 (depends on how many I keep) for a fall pepper crop.

The variety Patio tends to have what are called Rugose type leaves. Regular shaped but more pleated/bumpy/twisted/wrinkled and a darker green. So while I would check carefully for aphids on the undersides of the leaves as they can cause that sort of twisting, I wouldn't worry about it otherwise. Just avoid over-fertilizing. Dave