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Since my wife's superior vision can spot a dirty car long before I can, I may not qualify to answer the question as to whether the number of insects splattered on the windshield today is increasing or decreasing.

I suspect the latter and will offer two more bits of supporting evidence. As a kid, I would collect lightning bugs by the jar full. Most survived the collection, inspection and release by my little fingers. Although still visible in the summer from a perch on my deck, I suspect collecting a jar full today would be a daunting task.

My second clue is the remembrance of hordes of moths hovering around any outside light. Today I don't see that, and I don't think it is just because I go to bed earlier.

What is happening? Sprays of chemicals may be part of the problem, but my guess is that loss of habitat is a much larger culprit. Fortunately, we can do something about that if we wish.

The first step is to take a long walk in a large woodland or an un-mowed field or meadow. Look for two things. Look for beauty and look for pest damage. Beauty is easy. Pest damage is hard to find unless you are in the thick of an infestation of something like gypsy moths.

Research shows that few of us will spot pest damage until 10 percent of the leaves are damaged. That seldom happens in nature, and noticeable damage need not happen in our gardens if we can learn from our field trip.

Since most insects are specific to the plants they evolved with, one must make a strong case for native plants. Although I have wrestled with a definition of native for a long time, I believe that the most accepted definition includes selections of natives for better landscape qualities.

One fear is that as natives have become more popular, the breeders may swing into action and in their quest for garden beauty may lose some of the characteristics that made the plant desirable to our native insects.

On your hike I hope you also noticed that there were many different plants growing in one community. Diversity of plants favorable to a host of insects is necessary to provide the balance nature uses to sustain itself.

Also, your walk should have suggested that the density of plants in nature usually exceeds what is happening in our yards.

Increasing diversity and planting densities and adding as many native plants as possible will move us closer to a sustainable garden. My gardens will always have plants of foreign origin, but I am increasingly looking for natives to substitute.

What about those pest-free, usually non-native, plants? Too often a non-native insect or disease has sneaked along and thrives without the natural controls. So out comes the sprayer and we are back to our starting point.

Insects are important for pollination, beauty and enjoyment (butterflies), eating other insects and decomposition of organic material. We also must add that they are essential to support many of our songbirds.

Recently, I heard a long-time bird watcher complain that we no longer see tree-fulls of birds like we used to. Ironically, we were standing in a suburban yard that looked like a page out of a combination woods and meadow that was teeming with birds.

As I sit by my window and gaze at the snow-covered yard, my mind is on my vegetable garden. After last year's success with pumpkins, Liam is anxious to try his hand with carrots. I am going to try some new techniques; including wider rows and straw mulching.

Are you thinking about gardening this summer? Do fresh tomatoes and basil sound good to you? How about artichokes? Whether you are a gardening novice or a seasoned canner, there are resources available to help you.

The Master Gardener program sponsored by the extension is a wonderful place to start. The Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 established Land Grant Colleges or Universities to teach agriculture, mechanical arts and home economics, among other things as a practical education resource. Penn State University, our land-grant, predated the Morrill Act, and its charter was used as a basis for writing the act.

Part of the mission of land-grants is community education, called extension. Funding for extension comes from federal, state, and local governments, as well as private research grants.

The Lancaster Master Gardeners, while sponsored by the Penn State Extension, is financially self-supporting. Their garden symposium which is open to the public is coming up March 21st at the Four Seasons Golf Club. They also hold a plant sale May 2nd. The Master Gardeners plant the field trial at Landisville, teach gardening workshops in our school classrooms, are helping to put in a Children's Garden at the local library and are involved in many other ways to promote gardening.

The extension writes scads of wonderful publications on a wide variety of topics including fruit trees, vegetables, horses, dairy, beekeeping, and canning. You can pick them up at the extension office in Lancaster, (or West Chester for you Chester Countians) or access them online.

Another wonderful service the extension offers is soil testing. Kits are available for $9.00. Getting your soil tested to know your pH, nutrient content and soil composition is your best first step towards a successful garden. We got our soil tested last fall, and were prompted to spread a load of manure and further amend the soil with some lime. Hopefully my tomatoes will be happier this year.

If these economic times have you worried, there is nothing more soothing to the soul than digging in the dirt. And fresh peas or a juicy red strawberry right out of the garden will always brighten my day. There are lots of people to help you if you want some advice, and a great place to start is the Master Gardener help line at 717-394-6851.

I have a question, but before I ask it I must inform you that your answers will not be counted unless you answer yes to two qualifying questions. Got that? The first qualifying question is, have you had a valid drivers license for at least 20 years? The other is, do you wash your car on regular intervals?

The question is, were there more insects splattered on your windshield when you first started driving than there are now? Insects, ugh, you know those creepy little things that bite, sting or chew the plants in the garden.

To set the record straight, insects get a bad rap. Of the millions of different insects found throughout the world, less than one percent fit the category of creepy little things that bite, sting or chew the plants in our garden.

Most are rather benign and generally unseen. Many survive by eating other insects. Usually there is an insect, or many insects, that eat most of the insect pests that appear in our gardens. The challenge is to find the proper balance to let nature minimize our problems.

Insects play a dominant role in the decomposition of organic material whether it is plant or animal material. Many provide important pollination services vital to our food supply. Some, like butterflies are cherished for their beauty, but that's gist for future words.

About 90 percent of plant feeding insects are very specific about what they eat. The reason is that plants really don't like being eaten and to protect themselves produce poisons to ward off attacks. In a few plants, the poison levels can be toxic to humans.

What has happened over lots and lots of years is that insects have developed defenses against the poisons of one or a small group of plants. Different insects have different tolerances so they have different diets or targeted plants.

Maybe 10 percent are generalists. They will eat a wide variety of plants. Japanese beetles quickly come to mind. Perhaps their address suggests that they have few natural predators here, which magnifies the problems they create.

The Norway maple was introduced to this country from Europe with the first colonists and as of yet it has no specific insect pests. Lots and lots of years is really a lot more than lots and lots of years.

If you check the lists of invasive plants you will find Norway maple on most of them. It is not too hard to find them in our woodlands today. It might be too easy in another 25 or 50 years.

There is a field of research that wants to quantify the poisons that a plant produces and derive a way to enhance their concentration to fend off insect problems.

There is another and perhaps a more nature friendly approach to insect problems which needs to be explored.

Since the first question was very easy I give you another. Can we create gardens that welcome some of those predator insects that will eat the bad guys? While you ponder those questions I will close with another.

Can you best limit pest damage in your garden by avoiding planting those plants that the garden centers claim to be pest free?

It is a conspiracy between a calendar reading December and a weatherman who refuses to wait until after Christmas to predict a steady diet of below freezing nights. They seem intent on ending the current gardening season. As usual I will probably have to put my tools away before I'm ready.

Last week a visiting brother-in-law noticed the tall pile of mulch on the back of my over-sized lugging pick-up truck. He didn't volunteer to help unload it. I just smiled and added that it was load number 20 and that I still needed several loads to finish what I wanted to do.

In general it was an easy year to garden but, as usual, there were successes and failures. Our biggest flop was our vegetable garden where the weeds fought and won a valiant battle.

In retaliation, my wife and some younger co-conspirators took and sent to the Penn State labs a soil test. It came as no surprise that the results returned were not pretty. There is a strong correlation between certain weeds and deficient soils and we just proved that.

Several days ago I was informed of their course of action. They had arranged to muck out a nearby horse stall and spread the results across the vegetable garden. When I volunteered to run the rototiller behind them I quickly discovered that I was already assigned a fork and more of a leading role. (Editor's note: Dad cleverly arranged to be away when Jon and I came back with the load of manure).

I haven't used a fork behind a barnyard animal in over thirty years. There has to be a justified level of incompetence or danger I can claim. Don't you think?

If you use manure in the garden it is important to realize that it works slowly. You get somewhere about half the benefit the first year and lesser benefits lasting several additional years. I would venture to claim that the same holds for any organic material added.

Despite the problems, there was a great success story in my vegetable garden this year. I planted two not so long rows of strawberries. One row was a variety that I grew commercially almost twenty years ago. They are normal spring ripeners.

The other row was a day neutral variety. They give you ripe strawberries in limited quantities throughout the summer. We picked the blossoms for a while to encourage plant growth but then got hungry for strawberries and quit.

Grandson Liam soon learned to lead one of us to the garden to check for strawberries. On occasion he proclaimed that his belly was full and I got to taste a few. In a contest between local spring berries and store-bought shipped berries they landed squarely in the middle in quality and taste.

Looking at the two rows, the spring bearers have formed a thick matted row while the day neutrals are much sparser.

I had my first December sighting of robins on the farm several days ago. If they can do it, I can continue to deny the calendar and the weatherman and complete a few more projects.

Before it gets too bad, maybe I can follow the robins and at least shorten winter by a few weeks. I shall return with the robins on the other side of winter if the editor and God are willing.

The Friday morning before Thanksgiving we fled the area and the snow under the cover of darkness. The three-day two-night trip was long planned and had no gardening implications. However, my wife and I could not resist doing the 50-mile an hour inspection of every garden center we passed.

They looked too much like it was Christmas for my pre-Thanksgiving tastes. Although we disagreed I am sure the Christmas trees I saw leaning against a rope and nicely baled were cut and not ball and baled for replanting.

To my way of thinking, trying to get much more than three or four weeks from a well tended cut tree is difficult. Besides, if you want to stretch the season it should be after Christmas as you procrastinate about taking it down.

Spruce, pines and firs dominate today's cut live tree selection. Each group may have several varieties to choose from.

Pines have the longest needles and perhaps the strongest evergreen smell. The longer needled white pine is soft while the others are a bit stiffer. While pines hold up well in the house, disease and more difficult field shaping seems to be pushing them to the Christmas sidelines.

Spruces have short, sharp needles. Selections run from blue to green to a gray green. Spruce may be the most economical, but can be faulted for having the poorest needle holding once cut.

Firs have come to dominate the cut Christmas tree market in recent years. All firs are easy to train although they may be a bit slower growing than pines and spruce. They have short soft needles that hold well in the house.

Douglas firs are the most common of the locally grown varieties. They have been my choice for many years until recently. You also may spot balsam firs that have a bit finer texture. These often come from the west coast, Michigan or North Carolina. I confess I am writing about something out of my area of expertise but I am not aware of anyone growing them locally.

The new premium tree is the Concolor fir. The silver-blue needles are a bit longer and curl slightly. The tree also grows a bit looser than either of the other firs. The branches are also a bit more upright at the ends.

If you are using a live cut tree, the most important success point is to make sure the tree will have water. When you get the tree home regardless of whether you just cut it or it sat on a lot for several days, cut about an inch off the stump and immediately get it into water. Warm water for the first application is even better.

All plants have built in protections against water loss. The stump of your Christmas tree will quickly seal after cutting to prevent water loss or uptake for that matter. That's the justification for the last paragraph.

In a week or so we'll slow down and look for a live cut tree and our Christmas season will begin.