Mary, what the heck do the two security doors provide? HI FN, Those security doors keep keep the bed secure from bugs, by gum!! Actually, they are/were trellises. That was my attempt to follow Catherine's lead in letting the tomato plants sprawl. I thought they would be good for keeping the vines off the soil. They were but fertilizing was a real hassle and I've abandoned that idea. This year I've gone horizontal with a couple types of cages. I may try the sprawl again. I've been spraying beneficial nematodes to battle a brown dog tick problem and I'm hopeful it will also get rid of the 'hoppers and squash vine borers. I'm willing to spray the BN's twice or three times annually for a while if it does the trick, then I'll be more comfortable sprawling the vines. Thanks for asking. m

I am in Somerset and the beetles are the worst I have ever seen. I have been in my current home here 6 years. My grapes were COMPLETELY defoliated...they usually have some damage but not enough to worry about. My cherry tree is now almost defoliated. They have eaten every bud on my crepe myrtle and Rose of Sharton before it opens. They have damaged much of the leaves on a Stewartia. They are heavily damaging things I have never seen them on like blueberry bushes and potted Amorphophallus. A Virginia Creeper growing over an old stump has also been completely defoliated. Amazing!!!

The bananas did give me some joy. I've had bananas off the tree in the tropics, and so I know how good they can be. As for mangoes, it is a good idea to net the fruit like this, especially to protect them from squirrels. This is similar to what I did with pineapple. I had no problem with animals eating my mangoes in Venice CA, but I did have a teenage surfer steal some of them once. After that I made sure that I kept my back gate locked. My neighbor next door caught the boy stealing my mangoes, and he asked the boy what he was doing, and the boy said that he knew me. Then my neighbor asked him what my name was, and the boy ran off with the mangoes. He only got two or three, but I did not have a large crop that year - only about twelve or fourteen that season, and the boy got the best ones. I didn't care if people stole figs because I had more than I could give away.

Update: ignore my comments about 'Mme Isaac Perriere', which is what I thought was being referred to by "MIP" (if you're going to refer to a rose by an abbreviation, realize that it can be misinterpreted) . Still, my comments about removing and replacing Rust prone roses stands. I realized many years ago that any rose that Rusted early in the season was going to be a problem rose forever, and so I removed those varieties and replaced them with less problematic roses. 'Mme. Isaac Perriere' was one of them, but far worse was 'Rose a Parfum de l'Hay', a true Rust machine. Horrible. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life spraying those every 12 days with an Azole fungicide*, replace them before you become any more devoted to them. Maintaining a "Rust Queen" isn't worth it. Its possible that 'Bathsheba' won't get as much disease once you remove 'Mme. Isaac Perriere', which is undoubtedly the spore generator here. *propiconazole, the most effective fungal suppressant. Sold under a variety of brand names; look for it in the list of active ingredients.