I saw a few stray honeybees last month onthefly but I see nothing on the holly shrubs in full bloom (they smell great)..the test will be in a few months when the vitex are in full bloom. Then I will be able to assess the honeybee population compared to previous years. Two years of extreme drought has probably had a bad effect on them.

Mosquitoes are a problem sporadically for us, but since we tend not to have the heavier rainfall many of you have been having, they're not much of a problem right now. We do have a huge platoon of dragonflies and damselflies who look for food relentlessly all day long and they love mosquitoes, and we have lots of birds (including Purple Martins) and bats that eat them too. I also put Bt 'israelensis' granules or dunks in all our standing bodies of water...like the rain barrels, the ponds, etc. Suzie, It can be very hard to identify caterpillars since there are over 300,000 species of Lepidoptera worldwide but Susan might be able to tell you what it is since she is into butterfly gardening. On the website linked below, there are additional links that identify known butterflies and moths of Oklahoma. If the damage to your shrubs rises to the level that you feel like you need to treat the caterpillar infestation, you can spray your shrubs with Bt 'Kurstaki' which is a toxin manufactured from a bacteria that specifically targets caterpillars. It is organic and won't harm anything other than the butterfly/moth larvae. It is easily found in stores and the products that have it as their active ingredient include Thuricide, Dipel and Safer Caterpiller Killer. In the veggie garden, I generally just handpick cats off plants because I have so many flowers there that attract butterflies and moths, and even desirable caterpillars like those of the Black Swallowtail, so I don't like to use Bt there. In an ornamental shrub bed, though, I wouldn't hesitate to spray with Bt if the shrubs had considerable damage. Anna, I'm in Love County and have not seen any decrease in fire ants this year (I wish I had), so I don't think the winter affected ours even though our low temps this winter went down into the single digits a few times. We had them all over the place beginning about late March and running through mid-May. Since the rain stopped in our county and the heat cranked up into the mid- to upper-90s, they've gone underground the last 2 or 3 weeks and I'm not seeing them as much, but I bet if it rained they'd pop up out of the ground overnight. I still find them in raised beds in the veggie garden when I'm digging or when I'm pulling weeds, and I still run over an occasional mound when mowing. I only treat mounds in the veggie garden and in my container-grown vegetables, the dog's fenced play yard, and the backyard where our granddaughter plays and I only use organic fire ant killers. We have almost 15 acres, so there's no way we could afford to treat all of it. In the past I have used some non-organic fire ant killers, but because we have a lot of edible crops in the form not only of vegetables but also fruit trees and berry crops, I've stopped using all nonorganic fire ant killers. We have oodles of native ants of all kinds, but the evil fire ants dominate the ant world at our place. We also have red harvester ants in and around the veggie garden, but I leave them alone because they are a food source for the horned toads and because they clean up the carcasses of dead insects. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Butterflies and Moths of Oklahoma

When the bottom filled up the bin became in essence a non-flow through. Like a Rubbermaid, so you got all the hassles associated with that type system. I myself have had a couple occasions when there was a huge thunderstorm that soaked the bin. I did git a large amount of worm filled compost fall through to the bottom. I keep a lid on the bin to help prevent this but during large storms the lid overflows. The bin always dries out again in a couple weeks. What i observed when i started my Flow Through. When I fed the FT it formed a layer that is almost pure castings just under where the food was placed. The castings are more paper than black compost and is a little stiff and hard for the worms to get through. There were worms stuck below this layer in the original bedding. I filled mine full of nearly finished compost from my bins. And discovered that the compost wasn't as done as i thought it was. I have used compost as broken down as it was and hadn't given it a thought. But I found a FT does a far better job at breaking down everything in the bin. The compost settled down to about a third the original volume after a couple months. That was with huge feedings and a lot of paper additions too. It was a big surprise. The layer of finished compost at the top got thicker and eventually reached the bars. It comes out looking and feeling more like composted leaf litter on a forest floor, fluffy too. The first compost I harvested for a while was from the original worm filled compost transferred from my old bins. It did keep improving the longer it stayed in the FT. But it just didn't get as good as the compost formed in the FT to start with. The original bin compost was also lumpier and looser than the layer formed in the FT. As the worms wiggled about in the layer of loose compost it fell into the bottom collection area. I eventually harvested out most of the fallen compost and separated out the worms. Adding the worms back into the top of the bin. When the FT layer reached the bars on the bottom I needed to scrape the compost out. There still are a few worms and a little compost falling but not nearly as much. I just leave the compost in the collection area. For stray worms to live in until there is enough to bother removing it. I then separate out the worms and store the finished vermicompost in a old Rubbermaid bin until i need it. I should add that the compost that comes out the bottom is damp enough for the worms but dry enough to send through my homemade 1/4 inch strainer without waiting for it to dry out more. And i never found worm cocoons in the finished compost after the original compost worked its way through the FT. And this one i find a bit curious. Almost all the worms that fall into the collection area are NOT adults. I wondered about this one a lot but decided that they are the babies hatched out from the cocoons laid at the top of the bin.

Equinox, just curious as to why you would towards not on the silica powder? As far as the comfrey patch location, well that looked just like everywhere else out here when they were planted. The whole area there got a few inches of manure and few more of fresh wood chips not too long ago. Comfrey loves nitrogen and will take straight fresh chicken manure which is a feat for most plants. It will grow in poor soils though too and that makes it attractive here. When we plant them I dig a hole 2 feet deep and put a cubic foot of steer in the hole to give it a good start sending down its deep roots. This plant will root from 8 to 12 feet deep I am told. Once established they accumulate minerals and nutrients from deep down and bring it up to the surface. A couple other amazing things about comfrey is that they fix nitrogen through mycorhizal relationships and among all the nutrients they produce is B12 which I understand is quite uncommon for terrestrial plants. A drawback is though this variety does not reproduce through seed it will from small root fragments and once established it seems is quite difficult to remove, like crabgrass tilling just spreads it and I would be hesitant to garden much around it as working the ground would likely encourage its spread. I do plan however to try a wide bed with a row of comfrey down the middle. This will be a strict no till, start from seed and remove at the surface to keep from disturbing that roots and try and keep it behaving. I love the idea of having it so handy for chop and drop mulching. Francoise, yes we are looking at many different trees and shrubs. Some beneficial others more ornamental, our plan there is try everything and keep what works :D We have dozens of different types of seeds that are going in the fridge soon for their stratification period so spring is going to be quite interesting this year. You are also absolutely correct on the many strategies note. Much like a compost pile, the more variety the better. I am of the mind of the forest garden and intend to really push companion planting and interplanting throughout the garden and property rather than traditional row crop gardening though that will surely see its place too. Yes Pete, a pony or mule might be nice. We do have quite a few horse folks around though so I am going to make a point of seeing what might be available there and cut out the whole nother mouth to feed at least until we have better ground to do something like that on. Have to say I think of all I have read on rearing worms I relate to your style closest. Benign neglect is my kind of style for sure. The way i see it te more of what I do that is simple and somewhat self sustaining the more I can do and keep going. Otis, see above for probably more than you want to know about comfrey. There are other things like its fantastic ability to produce green material that breaks down quite quickly. A bucket stuffed full and capped for a few weeks will end up a black sludge that can be diluted and used in the garden. Lawrence Hill developed these Bocking sterile varieties and yields of 100+ tons an acre have been written about. With favorable conditions the entire plant can be cut to the ground giving up 5 to 8lbs of leave only to be regrown in weeks allowing for 5 to 8 cuttings a year. Thats 25 to 64lbs of nutrient rich leaves per plant per year. If we use an average of 40lbs every 50 plants will produce a ton of material that can be used in the compost pile, fed to the animals (worms included), made into liquid fertilizer or directly placed in the garden as mulch or compost. The last growth should be allowed to overwinter as they are a great shelter for many beneficial insects and spiders. I have read as many as 250 spiders might winter over under a single plant. That last foliage also helps support and shelter the plants own roots. Understand all of the above is from what I have gleaned as this is our first year with these plants. I will say though that from what I have seen so far I have little doubt in the validity of the information out there regarding comfreys use in the garden. About water, we have a very good well. Our water is about 100' and when it was drilled was measured at 100+ GPM. Our pump is 25GPM used to fill a 10K gallon tank. It cost about $0.35 1K gallons to get it into the tank and about the same to put it under pressure 40 to 60PSI. The tank is close to 500' away and maybe 15 feet of head so i am thinking about putting in a second line as a gravity line for irrigation cutting the cost of already cheap water in half. The one issue we do have with our water is that is is hard. i need to get a test done (we did years ago but honestly I dont remember the results as we mainly were testing to make sure it was safe) to see if there is anything we can do for it. Soaker hoses clog in a few months and many types of drippers suffer the same fate. Other than that drawback though water should not be any issue especially if we can get the material into the soil to hold the water where it needs to be for plants to flourish.