I'm a bit hesitant to celebrate right yet, but for the past week or two, I haven't noticed the "bad" bugs in my garden!! I was having a hell of a time with cucumber beetles and potato bugs *I think.* They were devastasting my tomatillos, and every squash blossum that opened had 3-6 beetles clamoring around inside the blossom. But suddenly, they just aren't there...my tomatillos are leafing out and recoving nicely, and my squash, well, the squash is fine and fruiting crazily like it should. I'm not sure many of you get the dry, dry heat that we have here in the southwest...but I'm thinking the onset of our summer heat has the bugs headed undercover. Is this observation true for other places--high temps and your beetle problem is gone? Plus, I'm starting to get baby garden spiders--if it was anything like last year, these spiders will grow into great bug munching beasts! Go spiders go!

This is my second year gardening, and last year I remember having beetles decimate my first round of tomatillos, but not the second planting. This cycle of bugs might be my second BIG observation of the year--the first was to properly prepare my compost (I have a garden too full of "volunteer" plantings, from mystery squash to a variety tomatoes that I didn't really find tasty last year!).