I’ve learned this one the hard way – make sure granulated fertilizer is dry so that spreaders can spread it. I wondered why the fertilizer bags were leaking a watery, brown substance when I recently moved one off the top of the other in my garage. It was raining the day I purchased it, the bags were located on a pallet outside of the store under an overhang, and there was no indication that the contents were wet – until I opened the bag this past weekend. Wet, clumpy fertiliz

We often get asked, how do I tell if I have a queen, because I can't find her? If you cannot find your queen, don't worry, we rarely see her anyways. The best way to tell if she is ok, is by looking for signs of her. If you have eggs in the bottoms of cells somewhere in the hive, then it's a pretty safe bet that she is alive and well. Remember, eggs hatch into a little “C” shape larva after only 3 days, so if you see eggs, then the queen has been in area in the last three day

My peppy steps to check on my plants and to plant a few more peppers came to a grinding halt today when the greenhouse keeper stopped me at the door and said, “We have thrips.” Thrips are tiny insects (note thrips is always plural, even if talking about one) that suck the sap out of leaves, creating air pockets that scar the leaves. The scars are very evident in my photos. How did these get into the greenhouse? They can be carried on workers – preferring light blue, yellow, a