A. You may have the babies for the Painted Lady Butterfly on your flowers. Controlling them not eliminating them is the key. If you don’t mind handling them, physically removing them is a good safe way of control. There is also a safe, natural product on the market called Bt, it’s specific to caterpillars and won’t hurt anything else. This caterpillar is a natural control of one of our most troublesome weeds, the thistle. It likes to eat the flowers of the thistle and therefore prevents the weed from reproducing.

A. Pruning- Pruning your trees should be done while the tree is dormant. Now is not a good time at all, it would encourage new growth when the tree should be setting bud and going dormant. There are a couple of exceptions to the rule, dead or diseased wood should be removed whenever discovered, also pruning for safety reason should be done right away. Fruit Trees should be pruned in very late fall or very early in the spring.

A. Tomato Care-Make sure you keep soil moisture consistent, stop fertilizing at this time and remove the tops of the plants. Stopping the new growth from continuing will direct energy to the fruit.

A. Fertilizer Ingredients- Those numbers on the bag of lawn fertilizer tell you the percentage amount of the 3 major elements, needed for plant growth, contained in that specific bag. For example a fertilizer containing 16-4-8 would have 16 percent Nitrogen, 4 percent Phosphorus and 8 percent Potassium. This is the ingredients for a New Lawn Starter, which is lower in Nitrogen than the average lawn fertilizer. The label should list the source for the three elements plus any secondary or minor