Kitty, I am so sorry that you lost your little bunny. It is so hard to give up on them. This has been a very difficult summer for our animals. Horrendously hot and so very dry....we are way behind on rainfall. The hot spell was off and on (seemed mostly on) for July and most of August with 108 being the highest temp we reached. The past week has finally seen a bit of a turnaround. We have had three spates of rain with a total accumulation of about three inches. Things have turned green again. We lost four of my little grey Japanese bantams one day despite regular water changes and a box fan blowing on them. Then, the youngest of our three peacock chicks just faded away. The other two are doing great, though, and I just had to giggle when I saw one of them "courting" the other one. Wish I could have gotten a picture. He was draggging his wings, with his tiny little tail stuck straight into the air while he was slowly circling the other chick. He was just about a month old so they do learn early in life. On August 19th the last of our summer's guests left for home so we have been trying to readjust our lives a bit. The first arrived the second week of June and we did not have a dull moment for two whole months. Three sets from Florida and finally, my son & family from North Carolina. While they were here we did some house searching for them and his wife did some job interviews. They are planning to move here in November. We did find an old farm house for them to rent about six miles from us so they will have a place to land until they get their house built. Great fun. I fell late in July and fractured my right wrist. Am a bit osteoporotic and the break was not cleanly across the bones but caused some splitting. It has been the most painful break of my life. And, having a cast on my right arm (am right handed, of course) during this 100+ degree weather has truly been something I do not want to repeat. Even with the guineas working tirelessly we have had a bumper crop of teensy-tiny, little ticks this summer. Just out in the yard a half an hour today and got two on me. Looks like we will wait until after frost to finish cutting the winter's wood supply to avoid the ticks as much as possible. Am sending in reinforcements! We just turned twenty lavender and pearl guineas out of their pen for the first time today. Here's hoping they can find the little blood suckers! My young americaunas will be the next of our little group to be "freed". We got ten little pullets in May that look fully grown now. Funny looking girls, with those fuzzy faces. Jude, would give a bunch to be able to pick blackberries with you. Ours burnt up on the vines before they got a chance to ripen. Here's hoping for next year. Sure good to catch up with you all again. More later!

This is a good year for cactus blooms. They got kicked around by spider mites last year, but, I think I got them under control and onto annihilating the little bastards. The reason I work at this... Prometheus

I missed your ammonia paragraph, Skybird, oops, shows I should read more carefully. Last week, my DD managed to kick a soccer ball into a bush with resident wasp nest and was stung when she retrieved the ball, ran into the greenhouse and slapped a paper towel with ammonia on it, and that was that. And for those who have fungus gnats in their houseplants/seedling starting stuff, that BT israelensis takes care of them very nicely. I order a 20 oz batch, and it lasts several years. When I start my seedlings, I sprinkle a couple of grains of the stuff in each cell, and no more fungus gnats. Here is a link that might be useful: link

I would suggest it's a bit early to dismiss the supercropping as possible cause of the BER. I agree it's not likely, but one plant without symptoms doesn't necessarily prove the supercropping wasn't at fault. It's possible the control plant had some variable in its favor that made the difference. Of course it's more likely there was some other minor variable that pushed things against the plants with BER. For the aphids I'd say either go biological or get out the big guns. Hardcore pesticides aren't great, but sometimes it's better than a total loss. Oh, and leaving the fruit on can make the BER persist. Each of those fruits represents a major future investment of plant resources. If there isn't enough to go around (a calcium shortage causing BER) the more fruit they're trying to grow the more thinly it's spread and the worse the problem is likely to get. I'd advise removing anything with even a hint of BER. Force the plant to redirect it's resources to areas that aren't already lost causes. It may be time to look for a superior source for nutrition. I've been using Advanced Nutrients for awhile now without trouble. It might work better for you as well.