Well, unfortunately, there is quite a few of them. I started picking them off, thinking more energy would then go into the other fruits. Then I decided to leave them on the tree hoping they would eat the rest of that pear and leave the good ones alone. No such luck, I've been looking over every inch of the tree, no insects to be found. I'm going to have to find a day and check the trees every hour in hopes of catching something. I'm reading up on this Bacillus thuringiensis in case I want to try it out.

Those are some good ideas MileHighGirl. In particular, putting the bait under the cage makes a lot of sense, as the animal will need to work to get at it, increasing the chances of tripping the trap. It's also important to secure the trap (a rock on each side), as I've seen the trap moved to get at bait which fell through. Fred, my area is a bit too urban for guns. Besides, I'm a bad enough shot I would probably hurt my trees, house or neighbors more than the target. When I was a kid, around 8 years old, I was growing corn (rather poorly) in my parent's garden. A neighborhood kid (who I was not friendly with) helped himself and I chased him down, almost getting him with a rock. I missed him, but got his father's car windshield...Hmm...Maybe that's not a great story to drive home the point "look what can happen when you don't hit what you aim at." I finally managed to catch the ground hog. Wrapping the cage in the small tarp seems to have made the difference. Though I also used a larger chunk of apple core to make it tougher for small animals to carry away (per Cindy's suggestion), which probably helped. I may not need the cantaloupe I just bought- I got home with it to find the groundhog caught. **Knocks on wood that there aren't any more ground hogs around**

Wow! What an education! thonotorose, I have seen one about 3/4 of an inch long. Like a miniature light green grasshopper. No doubt soon to be BIG grasshopper. cupshaped, mine are eaten in half on the sides. collinw, I'm taking my flashlight to go look now. bettyn_gardener, I did see a black drip of something on the bud. trepadora, so they'll be gone in May? collinw, I don't think I want to meet up with one of those in the dark. They resemble roaches that we have in the soil. They look like half of a whole roach. Eeewww. buford, we have squirrels. Don't know about chipmunks. Thanks, all for the gorey details. Sherry

Phyl, If I remember, you had cold and rainy weather for a long time early this season -- longer than we had. Cosmos are day length sensitive. Since you stated you planted these from seed, they won't begin blooming until August. They only way to trick cosmos into blooming sooner is to start them in seed trays, and plant out the plugs. This is what we do; and, actually they just started blooming about 10 days ago. Zinnia foliage is one of the favorites of the Japanese Beetles. They love the zinnias -- second only to the dahlias. Our zinnias are planted about 8" apart. It doesn't sound like yours are planted too close. And, we always give them a shot of fertilizer high in nitrogen. We have to be careful on the timing of the fertilizer because it can cause weak necks on the flowers; however, it greens up the plant and gives the plant the length we need. The Chrysanthemum carinatum I hate to tell you; but, DH plowed that under. The flowers were getting eaten all the time -- never any harvestable stems. And, lots of little bugs setting up housekeeping in all the plants. So, buh bye to the Chrysanthemum carinatum; and, hello to Copperhead. Anyway, if you have buds, you just need to give them some time. Zinnias and Cosmos are technically a late season crop.