i'm only an ok pepper grower--this year's better than most. here's my accumulated wisdom: 1) pick the right variety. for sweets, i've had great luck with fat n sassy, flexum and sweet spot (all from tomato growers supply). hot ones--tabasco, habanero, anaheims. 2) plant them as early as possible. when you plant your tomatoes--i.e., probably the beginning of march in n fla., maybe earlier. you might have to protect them from frost. for fall planting, they should probably go in now (mine have). 3) plant them CLOSE together for support and to protect from sun scald. stake them or grow them in cages. (i don't have room for cages, so instead i use multiple bamboo stakes--as many as 4 per plant.) 4) hot peppers do very well in pots. use a loose, well-drained mix that includes pine fines, perlite and peat. i use equal quantities if i can get fines in bags; otherwise i use a mix from my local landscaping co that is 1/4 hardwood fines, 1/4 pine fines and the rest peat. on this forum, search for "post hole method" or posthole method. it's how i plant them in the ground--essentially, dig out a cylinder of "dirt" and replace it with dirt. i haven't sprayed mine. they're under attack from stinkbugs (leaf-footed) and flea beetles, but they're healthy enough. i fertile monthly with a small amount of balanced fertilizer, and every once and a while a handful of epsom. i just got a BIG bag of peppers from happy_fl_gardener. my own plants have tons of fruit on them, and will produce another crop in the fall, as soon as the light changes enough and it cools down (sometime in september). it CAN be done. but it takes some practice and luck.

yeah, at the end of august i was up in new hampshire hanging with friends and doing some biznes... my friends live on the border of a huge orchard there, and every evening we'd sneak in and steal perfect peaches and early apples and eat until we felt ill... (i stuck $10 in the owner's mailbox.) when my mum lived in michigan, we'd go up every june and i'd eat apricots and currants until i couldn't stand them any longer. and, let me tell you, i can eat a LOT of apricots. a perfectly ripe, freshly picked apricot may be better than anything else on god's green earth. i miss more temperate climes sometimes, but then again, we can pick citrus six months of the year. we get peaches in MAY (and all summer from just a hundred miles north of here). and i've been eating persimmons (thanks, christine!) and pears for weeks now. there are reasons to love fla.

It is a Buprestid beetle, commonly called a metallic woodborer. Some of the species have very brilliant colors; almost all have the shiny, iridescent appearance that this one has. Our friend day by day might be able to ID the species, since it's in his neck of the woods. Not our friend - they cause a lot of damage to trees & shrubs. Great pictures, though - I wish I could get that kind of closeup. We have one up here in the North woods that looks just like it is made out of hammered brass. Tucker

I don't know, but it grows in San Luis Obispo, CA according to this site, so probably. It's hardy to 10 F, so it's not going to freeze there unless you have an unusually cold snap. Orchid Rock Rose