Kirsty, Before you yank out your peas, try starting a thread just about the peas. Link one or two pea photos and ask a simple question like "what is wrong with these peas". Then, Dorothy and others who routinely grow peas will see that thread, and hopefully they can tell you what is going on. I think it probably is disease caused by the very wet spring, but also might be heat-related. Since I seldom grow peas, I don't feel qualified to state with confidence that it "is this" or "is that". I hate to see anyone rip out a maturing crop without taking time to be sure that the likelihood of getting a good harvest is diminishing. If that is powdery mildew on the peas, you can treat with any fungicide, organic or chemical in nature, that is labeled for use on edible crops. I would never attempt to transplant a tomato that is in the ground at this point, unless it is still very, very small (and yours are not). With tomato plants that are very overcrowded this early in the season, you have several options. 1.) Leave them as they are, have fun harvesting from the wild jungle this summer, and plant with better spacing next year. This isn't as bad as it sounds. If your worst garden problem is that you planted too early and have to crawl into a jungle to harvest your 'maters, then that's not such a horrible problem, is it? 2.) Take a cutting from every other plant. Root the cuttings in water or soil (your choice) and start raising replacement plants. When I raise cuttings, I put one variety per container and label it with masking tape labels to keep the varieties straight. A week or two later (once your rooted cuttings have nice roots), remove evey other plant (it's OK---you already have your replacements for them growing). By removing and composting (sorry!) those plants, you've given the remaining plants twice the space to grow, enlarge and fruit. Then, after peas, lettuce, brussels sprouts, broccoli and other cool season crops come out (it is hot enough that they should be finishing up soon now), plant your cutting-grown plants in those empty spaces. That way, you'll have great tomato plants for fall and your spring-planted plants will have more room. 3) Or, after you've got cuttings going, instead of pulling up and trashing the plants, you could cut the plants back HARD, removing all but about the bottom food of growth and then dig them up and attempt to transplant them. The key is to cut them back so the roots are not too stressed from the shock of transplant + trying to support a large amount of topgrowth. Keep them watered well the first month (moist, not soggy) after they were transplanted and they should regrow and produce for fall. If not, you have back-up cutting grown plants. This only works if the bottom foot of the plant has a lot of healthy foliage. Otherwise, if the bottom foot is all stem and few leaves, they likely will not survive the transplanting process. 4) Leave them exactly as they are, but prepare for their continued growth. First, remove the branches, limbs, and suckers from the bottom 12-18" of the crowded plants. This will open up that lower area for better air flow which is a key issue and will help your plants avoid summer diseases like Early Blight. Then, mulch heavily under the plants to keep weeds down and to reduce soil splash and disease. (Diseases in the soil are splashed up onto the tomato stems and leaves when it rains or when you use overhead watering.) To keep the plants from falling over and taking down their cages, stake them. You can use whatever you have handy to serve as stakes. When I need stakes, I go to the lumber area at Lowe's or Home Depot and buy a bundle of construction stakes. They usually come in 2' and 3' heights, and sometimes in 4'. Currently, I am using the ones that are 4'tall. Stake each cage with one or two stakes to keep them from falling over. I hammer the stakes into the ground with an ordinary hammer, and attach the stakes to the cages with zip ties. If you find more bargain cages on sale, buy enough that you can turn each small cage into a tall cage. Use zip-ties (found in the electrical section of hardware and home center stores) to attach one 'new' cage to each existing one. So, you're attaching the top ring of each new cage to the top ring of each old cage and the legs of the new cage are sticking up into the air. This will allow your plants to grow upwards for 2 or 3 more feet and will keep your plants from becoming such an unruly mass. Trust me, this is a great solution for your current dilemma. 5. Leave the tomato plants as they are, but put some 6' t-posts every few feet, buy some twine or wire, and use the Florida Weave techinique to keep your plants growing upwards above their current cages. Google to find some photos/how to's for the Florida Weave, or do a search on the tomato forum. There--I've given you several tomato options and any of them will help you maintain a little control without sacrificing too much of your potential harvest. By the way, winter time is a great time to make your tomato cages, trellises, etc. for spring and it allows you to spend the money then, instead of in the spring when garden costs are high. If you make your cages in several different diameters, you can store smaller ones inside of bigger ones which are stored inside still larger ones, and they won't take up too much storage space in the off-season. Dawn

Y'all are too funny. The 'panic' statement was NOT aimed at or inspired by any one person, but don't y'all think there's a little bit of that "oh no" panic in all of us when we discover one garden pest or another has arrived? I just figured it was that time of year, and wanted to encourage everyone to view their garden/yard/landscape as an ecosystem and understand that ecosystems need balance, and that includes a balanced bug population. The only people I know who have really serious insect issues are the ones who routinely spray broad-spectrum chemical pesticides (and I have folks around me in the country who do this too, it is NOT restricted to only city folks) every time they see a bug. Once they've wiped out the good bugs, there's no one left to help them with the bad bugs, and bad bugs always rebound more quickly. Andria, bugguide.net is a good bug ID site and there are others, but that's the one I use the most often. Bt products should state on their label which Bt they are, unless it is clear in their name. The ones I buy have an Ingredient list and specify which Bt in that list. Bt kurstaki is sold in many products, and often it says Caterpillar Killer in large letters on the label. You'll find it in Thuricide and Dipel, among other products and, yes, the caterpillars you see on cole family crops are controlled by this form of Bt. The 'san diego' strain used for Colorado Potato Beetles will feature a Beetle somewhere on its label or in its name, like the product 'Colorado Potato Beater". The 'israelensis' strain used for mosquito larvae will have mosquitoes on the label and is found as mosquito dunks or as a granular product you can sprinkle into ponds and other still bodies of water. To avoid harming butterflies, I try to use Bt 'kurstaki' as little as possible, but it would be hard to get a good crop of cabbage without it. I don't spray the broccoli though, and I don't spray tomato plants with Bt to kill hornworms and fruitworms. I just handpick them when I find them and count on the help of the parasitic wasps. Boomer, Thanks. I think we have more than two kinds of gardeners here...we have many kinds and we all just do the best we can with what we've got. I gardened in a big city until I was 39 years old and moved here. I remember when folks sprayed DDT for everything when I was a child. Heck, I remember us kids running or riding our bicycles in the 'mist' that came out of the tanker truck when the city sprayed for mosquitoes. (It is a wonder the chemical exposure didn't kill us all!) I've tried raising a big 8' x 10' garden in a yard that was 95% shade, and was thrilled to have 6 tomato plants. I've done square foot gardening. I've done container gardening. What I do now is Biointensive gardening the John Jeavons/Alan Chadwick way. It works better for me than anything else I've ever done. You have to work with what you've got, and we've all got different challenges. And, in case you're thinking it is easy out here in the country, let me tell you.....I have ranching neighbors who spray large amounts of chemicals and it sometimes causes me problems. You just have to deal with the hand you're dealt. I get very frustrated when their herbicide drift kills or damages plants in my garden, but there's really nothing I can do to prevent it. I don't think pesticides are used as much as they used to be out here, but they're still used at a level that makes me uncomfortable. In one very, very bad grasshopper year, so much junk was sprayed to kill grasshoppers (and it didn't kill them!) that many songbirds died. We didn't see a single bluebird for over three years. During the last decade, I've seen a big shift in attitudes here...even the diehard chemical-using farmers and ranchers are trying really hard to do things in a much more sustainable way, and that gives me hope. They used to laugh at me, the organic nut, and now some of them ask me "What would you do for....." and I try to give them the best organic answers I know. Being more sustainable and 'green' is in, and that's a really good thing. Still, even though I prefer to garden as naturally as possible, I would defend anyone's right to use a chemical product if that is what they believe is best. I just think there's a better way. I don't even like using pyrethrins/permethrins because of their toxicity, and I would never use Rotenone. Neem is OK, but I only use it as an absolute last resort...so maybe one time every three or four years. I avoid most soaps and horticultural oils because they can burn foliage in hot weather. I guess, when it comes right down to it, that's not much I use other than hand-picking, squishing, or drowning pests. I do like Spinosad and love iron phosphate/Spinosad for the sowbugs and pill bugs. I use Nolo Bait every few years for hoppers (this probably will be that year....based on what I'm seeing in terms of how large the current nymph hatch is). I use more companion planting than anyone I know, and I use the companion plants either to attract beneficials and pollinators or to repel unwanted pests. I always describe my beds as a crazy quilt, because each bed is a blend of veggies, flowers and herbs. Some of the 'old farmer' types here refer to my companion plants as 'your weeds' but I just laugh it off. In case you think I don't get that little panicky 'oh no' feeling when I see a sudden influx of pests, you're wrong. I get it too. Then, instead of reaching for a chemical solution, I work on using a natural one. There have been a couple of times that I panicked and bought a chemical pesticide, and then couldn't force myself to use it. lol Guess what? The pest issue resolved itself and I didn't lose my crop or even a significant portion of it. Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing, but it has taken me my entire life to arrive at the point that I understand that. When we moved here, we had lots of pest insects, and seemingly few beneficial insects. I worked really hard for 4 or 5 years to control the bad guys and attract the good guys, and finally had one of those years where the good guys showed up and took care of the bad guys. There were a couple of years like that, and then one year, the good guys didn't come. Do you know why? Because our population of pest insects was too low to support the good bugs. It took me a while to understand that, but then it was an 'aha' moment and I finally got "it". Laura, I loved your description of your ecosystem and all the wild critters in it. I think it is simply wonderful that your daughter is learning so much at such a young age. Debra addressed the lady bug issue....all shapes, sizes, colors, including solid black ones. I've even seen pink ones here. They're pretty cute. Jleroi, Some of the most fierce battles I've ever seen are between praying mantids....but there's all kinds of life-and-death-drama between the various wild things every day. It is fascinating! Tigerdawn, This wasn't aimed at you. lol You're going to be fine. Trust me. I have a gardening friend who used to reach for the pesticide every time he saw a bug and has just decided to wait until a certain level of damage is being seen. Guess what? He rarely sees the damage rise to the level he thinks is 'too much' and now he realizes that the insects are not nearly as damaging as he thought they were. Glenda, My friend, Fred, is a big Sevin user, but he's really backed off in the last few years, and I can't tell his garden has any more pest issues than it did before. I think that after years of giving me a hard time about 'hogging all the bees', he finally decided to stop spraying so much and see if his bees would come back....and they did. He proudly stopped by one day recently while I was working outside to announce that the bees were working his fruit trees like crazy. I was excited for him. Dorothy, I think I'll look and see if Rodale has a bug guide somewhere online. You'd think they would. I used to have a great insect book, but I must have loaned it out or something because I can't find it now. All of you might get a big kick out of this: one year when our son was in high school, they had to do an Insect Collection, which of course was not high on any teenager's priority list. Once our son's classmates realized we had every bug in the world here at our place, some of them came by to 'catch bugs'. I wasn't sure if they thought it was great that we had so many bugs, or maybe terrible that we had so many, but they were able to catch all the different kinds of bugs they needed in just a couple of hours! Then they all worked together to identify them, and that helped me learn the names of some of the more obscure bugs, like Southern robber flies. After that, we were the 'go-to guys' for anyone doing a bug collection...nieces and nephews who lived in 'nuked' neighborhoods in Texas, DH's co-workers kids from Texas, etc. Need a bug? We've got 'em here. : ) And, once they came here to collect bugs, they learned we had lots of wildflowers.....which then gave them an idea where to come when it was time for the Texas kids to do a wildflower collection. Dawn

Thanks for info, Damp. I had my thinking cap on some days ago and I'm lucky that I have a couple of bushes near the pond that I can use to tie my netting to, along with a bamboo pole, leaving it free for the birds and other wildlife to come and go safely underneath. Wilkinson's sell two types of pond/garden netting, one of which is very fine and isn't very visible over the pond. I would NEVER use this, the wider variety, or the usual green garden netting in my garden because I had a very upsetting experience years ago when a poor blackbird got caught up in it and died. Considering how I look after all my birds and creatures in the garden, I was absolutely mortified and decided to never to use it again. I now use either narrow gauge chicken wire or those mini plastic tunnels sold for veg rows.

Ladyrose, they really do like the butterfly bushes best of all. I have three that I started from seed that get huge. Even though I have plenty of natives that they are supposed to love... they always go for the butterfly bushes. I know b-bushes are not native and invasive in some areas, but I just can't bring myself to get rid of them. The liatris spicata I have isn't usually very popular at all. I have been sowing other liatris varieties to try but they are still just tiny seedlings. I always see the the most variety from August to early September on the warmest sunniest days between noonish to about 4pm. The worst time of day to be standing out in the sun of course! I think the days leading up to or following a big weather change are good days to spot them just like with birds. When inside I'm always looking out the windows to see if there is something worthy of me dashing out there with the camera.