Years past it was the dreaded Colorado potato beetle,whom I would capture and rehome. Went most of the year without one, but by the time they appeared I had a bigger problem. The deer bit off all the tops off my greenbeans and potatoes [which I haven't planted in years]-and ripped a big limb off a new [golden delicious] apple tree relative to its size [I tried rooting hormones to try to grow some cuttings from the limb, but no luck getting a new tree out of it]. I put up a home made fence around the garden and they still got to them, so I pretty much stopped caring about the garden after that.

With the price of meat, I doubt the deer will make it past hunting season. 8(

Tried the zip lock bag trick again this year on the apple trees to keep out plum curculios, but appears I bagged them too late or they still got in the baggy anyways. Also the blue jays started to peck through the ziplock baggies to eat the apples, including my lone cortland on a 3 y/o tree.

I can't really say, other than apples [and soon peaches], I presently have an insect pest problem. Alphids got my brocolli pretty bad in the past, so I stopped growing them. After squash bugs attacked my curcrubites years ago I stopped growing them, aside from some cucumbers after a year off. Rose Chafers got my neighbor's new cherry tree pretty good this year, til finally I put some plastic baggies (didn't have netting available) on the ends to protect the new foilage...but that might have done more harm than good.

I am curious about trying the brix number thing next year, but I don't really want to store things like manganese chelate or other redox chemicals around our house per reason of pets.

video source:Advancing Eco Agriculture,