Fruitnut: I applaud your efforts, at worst you may be eccentric, who cares, at best, ahead of the curve. All of us should be aiming for what works best in our area as you well know. Speaking from experience, greenhouse and high tunnel culture are worlds vastly apart from outdoor culture, each have their own set of challenges and benefits. Probably the biggest set of challenges, depending on the regional climate, for the beginner is the relative lack of information on growing under cover when it comes to fruits. Being an atypical beginner to outdoor fruit culture, it is wonderful to have access to so much information ranging from published refereed journal research to gardening magazine articles. Though the learning curve is steep, at least there are many good footholds to use to climb the hill and many hands held out to help. I suspect trying to find labeled pesticides for fruit crops under plastic is pretty challenging also. Just curious what your water quality is like and soils as the 2 can lead to problems with salt accumulations over time depending on the water quality, soil type and irrigation practices. Like many, our little postage stamp sized horticultural enterprise could definitely use more land, there is none available. Both my wife and I would love to put up a high tunnel for extended vegetable production but we lack the means. It is quite unfortunate as I easily have the expertise to erect and maintain a high tunnel and farm under plastic. I just remembered a benefit you may not have ever mentioned to growing under plastic, you don't have to wear sunscreen to avoid sunburn! Darned it, now I really wish I had a high tunnel!

Tony, the neonicotinoid class of pesticides are systemic insecticides, so it would be extremely unlikely if they did NOT kill honeybees. In fact, it would be pretty much impossible for them not to do so. The question is, how much of this stuff is being sprayed, and how long does it survive in the environment? Well, the answer to the first part is that tons (literally) of the stuff is being sprayed because it is highly effective, and the answer to the second part is that it is most likely it breaks down very slowly because it is a systemic. I have heard similar reports that neoticotinoids aren't responsible for CCD. In fact, the professor I spoke to from UC Davis reported in a lecture that the French banned this class of pesticide, and the loss of bees continued. Unfortunately, this does NOT mean that these pesticides are harmless. It just means that there are other factors ALSO at work which are contributing to CCD, and now we know that the IAPV (Israeli Acute Paralytic Virus) is the main culprit, or one of the main culprits. The best we can figure right now is that honeybees are under attack from multiple sources, and the only way to effectively bring back the honeybees is to address as many of the factors as we can. One of the observations made about bees that were affected by CCD, ones that actually made it back to their hives, was that they were absolutely loaded with every conceivable pathogen---tracheal mites, varroa mites, several types of RNA viruses, including IAPV, and even bacterial pathogens as well. Ergo, the bees were highly stressed and their immune systems were severely weakened. This suggests multiple pathogenic agents rather than a single source.

depends on what "bottled water" is. bottled water like dasani is a NO NO, it must not have any of the harsh mineral salts that normal water has. You have 3 options, R/O water from a R/O unit (I purchased a Nimbus WaterMaker Mini unit that fits any USA tap socket for $80.00) or Distilled water (must say distilled, albertons sell it, costco should to) or rain water. I would avise atleast a 40 watt flurecent bulb for your light, VFT's LOVE light, as long as the bulb is not incandesent which can burn them. It does not have to be a grow light, full spectrum bulbs just give more natural light which help the plants grow, verilux bulbs are only about $15.00 per bulb ( I buy off amazon) I have hardend off my plants, so they no longer have any humidity dome. They grow indoors on a shaded window sill with those 2 40 watt verilux bulbs hanging overhead on a timer in a light fixture. I used distilled water from albertons to begin, but this got to expensive with the purchase of my american pitcher plant outside, thus I found out about the affordable WaterMaker Mini R/O unit. I fill up my 2 gallon bottles and then clip the R/O unit off my tap and put it in the fridge until its needed next. I also foliar feed my plats with Epiphytes Delight that I purchased from californiacarnivores.com. I do this since they dont really get bugs indoors. They are honestly growing healtheir, stronger and better out of the humidity dome. You can read the topic here called "HARDENING CP's" to see how I did it (how it was suggested to me) I live in Salt Lake City, Utah. My plants are in the basement which has a day temp of between 60-70 F, with the furnace running you can imagine how low the humidy is. Hope this helps, you are welcome to ask questions here or by email at: necro1234 at yahoo dot com Cheers Sheldon

The primary chemicals used for mosquito abatement programs are one of the pyrethrins. They may also use malathion. Both are deadly to bees and other insects and animals. Even in the very low volumes that are dispersed with specialized equipment, other animals species (which includes insects) can be very detrimentally affected. Sometimes, they will use a Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) strain of bacteria that controls mosquito larvae, and only mosquito larvea. It may control some species of gnats, too, if their larvae are aquatic. If they are just spraying the waterways, that's probably what they are using. Bt is relatively safe to use; not known to be harmful to mammals, other insects, aquatic animals, etc. Some people are allergic to Bt, so it's worth keeping that in mind if problems develop after an application. Overhead (airplane) or street (truck) abatement will focus on the adults, though it does a very poor job at killing enough mosquitoes to justify the environmental damage or health problems for those who may be sensitive to chemicals.