Hi Michelle - Welcome to your first year of gardening! First, did you harden off your seedlings before planting them in the ground? If not, your first task should be to search on "hardening off plants", very important. If you didn't gradually adjust them to the outdoors, your wind damage and wilting could be from moving the outside too quickly. As for the bug: definitely NOT a squash bug. Even blurry. The body shape and posture remind me of one of the flies. I can't think which one at the moment (and can't find my book), but that fly is either a good bug or a harmless one. For the leaf damage/holes, my guess would be slugs. With the rain, they have been atrocious in my garden. Go outside at night with a flashlight and check under the leaves. I used an iron phosphate based bate (Sluggo, etc) for the first time this year. It's organic, safe around pets and should only kill the slugs. Or, you can try cat food cans with beer. They love beer and drown in it. The small white spots could also be flea beetles. The more people I talk to in the Philadelphia area, the more stories I hear about really bad flea beetles this year. I should know what the white stuff is. I know I've seen it before. An chance of getting a less blurry picture? It can be tricky unless you have a macro function on your camera. My gut instincts are saying the fluff is from one of the trees that are pollinating right now. Just a note about your squash: it does not transplant well if the roots are disturbed, especially if it is big and root bound. You could try to transplant yours, but you may just want to direct seed in the garden. Good luck! Bellatrix

Oh yeah! Barley is a grain, no doubt about it. It's also a grass. and both the seed and the leaves can be used for assorted purposes. Tomato can be called a fruit (of the plant), or a berry (which is a kind of fruit), or a vegetable. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Yet it comes under my umbrella of 'herb' as well as being a beautiful plant which some people regard as purely ornamental. Such people forget (or don't know) that 'stopping to smell the roses' is a herbal remedy! Regardless of what part of the plant is used (leaves, stems, roots, seeds/grains, bark, flowers/blossoms/petals/stamens, fruits/berries), or what name you give these parts (tubors, rhizomes, roots - you get the idea) - they're still herbs, IMO. Or rather, the plant as a whole is. OK. Challenge! Read the following and then tell me why Barley is NOT a herb!! Culinary Uses: Barley is widely cultivated grain used as a food and in the brewing process. It is an additive for human and animal cereal foods. The seed can be fermented into sourdough and many other fermented foods such as tempeh and miso. It also makes a flavourful flour for use in baking breads and muffins. The seed can be sprouted and added to salads or the sprouted seed juiced and the juice drunk as a health-food drink. Barley is a common ingredient in soups and stews. It is also an ingredient in muesli and other breakfast cereal mixes. Malt is obtained by sprouting the whole seed and then roasting it. The seed is then ground into a flour and boiled in water. The resulting liquid is very sweet and can be used in making beer or other drinks, and as a nutritious sweetener in various foods. Barley is sold in several forms, the most common being pearl barley, which has been processed by being husked, steamed and polished. The flaked form is often used to make a breakfast cereal, similar to porridge. The roasted (unsprouted) seed is used as a coffee, and as a salt substitute. Medicinal Uses: A mucilaginous substance is obtained when hulled barley (pearl barley) is cooked, which is a good nutritional source for throat or stomach problems. The demulcent properties of cooked barley is useful in external treatment of sores, fevers, diarrhoea, gout, and tumours. Used as a tonic during convalescence. Useful in combating stress and fatigue. treatment of Barley shoots are used to dry mother's milk, to improve poor digestion, loss of appetite, and hepatitis. It is often recommended as a treatment for osteoarthritis, gastric ulcers and other inflammatory diseases, and to treat infections of the urinary tract. It can be given to children to treat fevers. It is also used to treat minor infections, diarrhoea, arthritis, anaemia, hepatitis, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, peptic ulcer, hypoglycaemia, bruises, dry coughs, burns, constipation, emphysema, gangrene, poison oak rash. rheumatism, haemorrhoids, prostate difficulties, premenstrual syndrome, muscle debility, and toxicity from lead, mercury, and other heavy metals. It has been shown to lower blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels and to regulate blood sugar levels, and is claimed to be protective against the risk of bowel cancer. Barley contains potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, phosphorus, manganese, zinc, beta carotene, B1, B2, B6, C, folic acid, and pantothenic acid, making it one of the most nourishing foodstuffs known to man. It also contains high levels of chlorophyll, a substance said to inhibit cancer, and several antioxidants, thought to help prevent many degenerative diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, stroke and premature ageing. Made into a poultice and applied externally, barley has demulcent properties which make it helpful in soothing and reducing inflammation in sores and swellings. A hot poultice eases stiff and painful joints and draws the poison from boils, abscesses, stings, bites and infected cuts. A cold poultice relieves swellings and helps with weeping eczema and other itchy skin conditions. Medicinal Actions: Demulcent, abortifacient, diuretic, emollient, expectorant, febrifuge, galactofuge, hypoglycaemic, digestive, carminative, nutritive, anti-inflammatory, stomachic. Other Uses: Barley water is a skin freshener for normal skin, cleanses and softens skin.

do not up the water.. without checking the soil ... how new is this tree???? your note indicates that it was a big investment.. so may i presume it is newer .. this year???? any sizable transplant will take a few years to regrow enough roots to support the tree ... so browned leaves are not uncommon .. with a tree.. i would err toward 'proper' water ... as compared to trying to drown it .... the only way to know if you are watering properly ... is to water it.. and then dig a SMALL hole with a hand shovel.. and see just how far down the water is actually getting... i would prefer one good deep soak a month .. to something like a sprinkler for 15 minutes a day ... you have to insure that water is getting down to the root level ... as to the holes in the leaves ... lol .. i would trim the tree up high enough that you don't see them ... lol .... i surely would not use chemicals on leaves that stay attached to the tree for the whole season .. they are still doing their work feeding the tree.. holes or not ... bugs come.. bugs go.. good years.. bad years ... but unless they are de-nuding the tree completely .. i just don't see where chemicals will get you anything positive.. in fact.. spraying of chemicals at the time the leaves are unfurling can burn the baby leaves.. and you will be further behind than if you left it alone ... on the other hand .. if its been in place for 5 years.. i might change my mind.. lol ken

In my experience, if you live in an area where there are mice, there is a certain amount of work required periodically to keep them under control. Some years we have only a few outside, other years there are lots. We've only seen one mouse in the house, and that was over twenty years ago. I use a combination of strategies to keep the population under control. Tin Cats, a trapping box with doors that mice can enter but not leave, are placed at several spots along the base of the house. You only need to bait these boxes once. I use a piece of apple core, or a smear of peanut butter. Mice enter and die, and their friends keep coming in. Mice are cannibals, so the later arriving mice eliminate the remains of the earlier ones. Every few days or weeks, depending on the pest pressure, I empty the remains, which are usually just some skulls. For remote outbuildings, I find Just One Bite baits to be amazingly effective. Some years I have no activity on any of the packets I place, other years I need to replace the packets pretty often. This bait is less than a dollar a package on Amazon, and lasts until consumed. Note that it is not for use around the house, as the active ingredient is not so labeled. Once or twice a year, I put out a bunch of snap mouse traps at suspect locations both as a control measure, and as a survey of where I might have a problem. I only leave them out for a few days, and then use an appropriate other control strategy. Don't get discouraged by mice; it takes some work, but control is possible. Renais