Well, I've had a shower and shaved, put on clean underwear so when they dig me out of the rubble and take me to the morgue, I'll be presentable and smell good.

I will either buy a couple of tomatoes (sometimes Cherokee purple is available and Arkansas traveler) or take some home from spring fling. I use swiss chard like spinach. I had one over winter a few years ago, but I can't remember which one it was, so I'm trailing the possibilities. I also want to try loculious (sp?) a variety that Lori Darling recommended. AND I have one Sand Hill says is an improved loculious. I want to do summer greens, too, if we ever get the beds cleared.

Question about your tall pocket planters, do you have to replace the soil in them every year?

My best rat story goes back many years, my kids were still little. There was a rat problem all over Tulsa in the storm drains. We lived near a manhole to them. I was the one who woke up when children cried, but this night Ron heard something. He got up, went to the bathroom and came right back. He says there's a rat in the toilet. He puts on his work boots gets a knife from the kitchen. I can't actually see the toilet, but I can see the man in steel toed boots And tighty whities with a plunger in one hand a knife in the other stabbing the toilet. The image is indelibly seared in my memory.

When I lived in town I used a grass catcher (sure a lot of work ) to save organic matter. A major problem I had was that I had too much grass, and it take a lot of room to compost that much grass, if my memory serves me right I got about 7 trash bags of clippings a week off of the front lawn (did not catch the back lawn), I also was always short on "browns", and needed to turn the pile too often to keep the smell down.

I think the best mulch I have ever used was shavings. A fellow about 8 miles south of me had a shingle mill, and cut shims for the coal mine. He let me have all the shavings I wanted, they were rip cut shavings and curly and did not pack, and had no weed seeds. But times marches on, he got old and sold his mill, and I got old and unable to haul the shavings. The next best mulch was shredded leave. My uncle has a huge lawn and had a shredder that he pulled behind his mower. In a years time my uncle might get a hundred yards of shredded leaves. I have a 6.5' x 12' trailer and would go over to my uncles, and would load my trailer with his tractor. The biggest problem using the leaves was that The P & K of my garden soil went up to 2 to 4 time optimum. If I had not been tilling the mulch into my soil the P & K may not have gone that high, also adding a lot of compost may have helped push my readings up.

I have been out planting peppers, and had to come back in for a coat. There is just something wrong when you have to wear a coat when you are planting peppers or sweet potatoes, but I have done it more than once.

I have some peppers that I am not sure what they are. I have seeds for a jalapeno that is small, and on small plants, I grow those often, and they are very productive. I also have some, new to me seeds that say Red Pimento, and the picture looks a lot like the small jalapeno after it turn red, are they the same pepper? I plan on planting some side by side to compare. I even have some habanero peppers this year. I have grown the habanero in the past, but not for me, neighbor said that he had a hard time growing them, so I planted some in my garden.

I have some China Giant bell peppers also, I hope to have extra of all plants I have, except I have a chocolate pear, and grand daughter has spoken for that one. I expect that she will find that the potting soil taste better that the chocolate pear tomato.