KingJP, you probably have a good combination of: - fertile soil - good weather - varieties well adapted to your climate - a balanced insect population, with plenty of natural predators - low surrounding insect pressure Count yourself lucky, and enjoy it while you can, because chances are that it won't last forever. There are so many factors involved in insect attacks & integrated pest management (IPM) that it is a very deep topic... I'll try to limit myself to 2 cents worth. ;-) I'm also a proponent of the "healthy plants resist bugs"... to a point. Many insect pests find their host plants by scent, ironically often by the same chemicals the plant creates to defend itself. Solanine and cucubitacin are two of those compounds. Plants under stress can produce these chemicals in larger quantities, which will attract insect pests from greater distances, and in larger numbers. I've mentioned elsewhere that I can tell when my young squash plants are under attack by an adult squash bug, because striped cucumber beetles will swarm on those plants. I find & kill the first squash bugs that way, then kill the swarm of beetles, and the plants can generally protect themselves from that point on. But I believe that plants can also be too healthy. Over stimulation of plant growth (such as by fertilizers, chemical or otherwise) can also increase the chemical signals which attract insects. I have had far fewer insect attacks on my squash & cucumbers since I stopped fertilizing them. I get smaller yields, but with fewer problems. The benefits of this philosophy have become more pronounced in the years since I first began using it. Gardening organically tends to avoid some insect problems... but you can over fertilize organically too, and sometimes the surrounding pest pressure is too intense to be successful without chemical intervention. Personally, if I can't grow something organically, I generally won't grow it... but I recognize that choice is not for everyone. Others have already mentioned a healthy, balanced ecosystem as a factor in reducing pest damage, and I concur. If you encourage natural insect predators - or at least don't discourage them by destroying their habitat - some problems will be self correcting. A healthy wasp population will control many caterpillars, and lady bugs (among others) can control aphids. Sometimes all that is required is patience, since the pest population might need to rise to a certain threshold before predators are attracted to it. And while you want to encourage beneficial insects, you also need to reduce habitat used by insect pests. Cleaning up debris in & around the garden helps to reduce the number of pests which will over winter. Tilling in the Fall helps also, since many insects hibernate underground (such as SVB). Tilling helps to reduce disease pressure as well. I tend to disagree with no-till gardening methods for this reason, because regardless of their benefits, they can foster persistent insect problems. I am a big proponent of mulching, and use it heavily on many vegetables. But I won't mulch under squash, because that can make management of squash bugs or cucumber beetles very difficult. Likewise, if crickets or slugs were a major problem in my area (they are not) then I would be less inclined to give them mulch to hide in. But nearly all of the methods used for pest control will only be effective if your garden is in a relatively isolated location, or if your neighbors also use similar methods. A single uncontrolled bug sanctuary in your vicinity, or the imbalance created by development or intensive farming, can cause overwhelming insect problems. And while I have focused on insects, uncontrolled animals can be a problem also. If your neighbors (garden or otherwise) have gopher problems, or have habitat for rodents, those problems will overflow into your garden as well. One of my most frustrating gardening experiences was in SoCal, where a neighboring gardener let his plot run wild, and it became gopher habitat... which persistently tunneled into my garden.

Well, I seem to have the same problem. My refrigerator is a GE and I found this goo on my top shelf, then at the bottom behind the crisper drawers, then last week on the 2nd shelf. So I started my Sherlock Holmes work. No, I have not spilled anything, no food has leaked out of any containers either. What I did first was to tape paper towel to the back of the refrigerator wall. Then a place one on the 1st and 2nd shelves at the back. Then something told me to look up, and that is when I notice the compartment at the top of the refrigerator. I went and got my camera and started taking pictures. There I saw a Styrofoam piece that had the same brown stain on it. Then I went to the Internet for some researching. Here is an article I found that was very interesting. https://applianceparts.wordpress.com/2008/12/24/refrigerator-leaking-oil-colored-liquid/ Excert: "If your refrigerator is leaking an oily or oil-colored liquid and is not freezing or cooling properly, it’s a good chance that the substance is refrigerator oil. The oil is normally clear and odorless, but when the seal to the system is broken, oxygen can dirty the oil during the compressor burn. The dirty oil is also an indication of a damaged compressor as well. Since oxygen has somehow entered what should be a sealed system, and the compressor is shot, your best bet is to get a new refrigerator as the cost of repair might be equal to the cost of a new fridge." I have several videos on Youtube regarding my GE Refrigerator. I hope this one shows the inside of the refrigerator with all of the goo. This refrigerator also has problems with mold, condensation, keeping food cold, defrosting automatically, and it also have some white goo / putty or foam coming from the bottom. It could be melted insulation now that I think of it. Feel free to take a look. I hope this helps someone!

I'm going to repeat my post from two years ago, because nothing has changed, and my solution is still working. If you find spots only on the front of your solid-color t-shirts after washing them, this will take care of them. It's a pain, but pre-treating them faithfully with Stain Stick--I now have to order it from Amazon, as WalMart and Kroger stores have quit carrying it--but it relieves the frustration of finding spots on freshly washed clothes. Spots only occur on the fronts of our t-shirts, never the backs or sides, so I think it has to do with getting grease on the front either from cooking or eating. Have you ever seen the spot a tiny crumb of potato or corn chip leaves on a brown paper sack overnight? My solution: pre-treat all visible spots with Stain Stick. Works most of the time, and seems to always work the second time around if there is a spot or two after the first wash. It's a pain, but compared to the trouble of making my own detergent, I'll continue doing it. I tried using spray pre-treatments, but once you spray you can't tell what spots are from the spray and which need to be treated. I have a top-loader and use Costco Free and Clear, but have tried Tide and other detergents, as well. Makes no difference. I use a dryer and fabric softener sheets. I tried no sheets and different brands--no difference. I typically pour the detergent down into the bottom of the tub so it goes into the area below the tub with the holes it, but don't wait to put clothes in until the bottom is covered with water, so it's possible some of the unmixed detergent is getting on the clothes. But as I started off with, if the spots were being caused by the detergent, they wouldn't be just on the fronts of the shirts.

We just got ANOTHER one like this! A postcard this time. [Note: I am CHANGING the date, names, and location, to protect their privacy -- i.e., NOT Zachary and Lauren, NOT Napa/Carmel, and obviously not August 32.] The front says, SAVE THE DATE August 32, 2008 and it has 2 pictures of the couple, but both small; you can only, barely, recognize faces in one. The reverse says: Mark your calendar for a Napa Valley wedding! Please view our website for more wedding/hotel details: [URL of web site] Ww hope you can join us and we can't wait to see you in beautiful Napa!!! Love, Lauren and Zachary My husband had NO clue, and he found it annoying. I figured it out, because I had heard that my cousin "Zachary" is engaged. He is much younger (my first cousin's son), and lives far away, so I haven't seen him in several years, when he was much younger; I'm not sure I would have recognized him from the tiny picture. neesie writes, "If you can't recognize the couple by their first names, are you really close enough to "save the date" and invest in celebrating their happy occaision?" Maybe that's true if their names are Cuthbert and Thusnelda. But, as I wrote earlier, even if they are very close, if their names are common, you may well know more than one person by that name. And remember too that many invitees are closer to the PARENTS than to the couple, so even less common names may not ring a bell. If I get a save the date or a shower invitation for "Rachel," I may be baffled, because I know a lot of Rachels and a lot of people who have daughters named Rachel -- and when you consider that I may not know Rachel at ALL, but I know her FIANCE'S family very well (I might even be related) -- well, it's hopeless, even if her name is Thusnelda! The point is, it isn't just people that you "barely know" that confuse you when they don't put last names ANYWHERE on the save-the-date or invitation. (And this one didn't even have a return address, so no clue there.) So I think it's a mistake to do it.