I find this time of year to be the most difficult to protect young seedlings. Everything, summer-like is still in full swing. It could be lizards, birds, snails, and/or pill bugs. My past strategies have been mainly - cages, with wire around them (for skunks, birds mainly), pieces of screen (birds - especially over emerging snow pea seedlings, and smaller fry - possibly lizards). I've also tried hiding seedlings among the pepper plants or other larger ones. But one option that seemed to work best - was to wait until cooler weather. The birds go south to the playas, the lizards stop being active, as do a lot of the bugs. That, of course, leaves snails, pill bugs and the white butterfly larvae. Soooo - yes screens work OK. A hoop type pvc cage with Remay cloth works OK. Waiting to plant seedlings when they get bigger - disinterests pill bugs. Hand picking worms and snails - I'm afraid is all I know to do - organically. But - like you, every once in awhile I take my chances and plant them anyway - OK, so I'm starting my second round of bok choy and leeks again. On the bright side, I have another batch of leeks seeking shelter underneath 2 nursery flats - to provide not only some shelter, but a bit of cool - cuz the temps are NOW in the 100's. (OK - so where were yu when the tomatoes needed ya). Bejay

Naturegirl, my tomatoes are alive, but barely. The rest of them look like they are being eaten by any number of things. I got maybe 5 good ones, the rest of the ones that *would* have been good I think were eaten by the squirrels. The ones that are next to ripen have holes. :( Bummer. I only planted the yellow, low acid ones, and my husband was sort of responsible for the veggie garden this year - and since he doesn't eat tomatoes and doesn't think I should either (he's into the blood type diet and we're "type A" - meaning avoid tomatoes), they were a bit neglected and never properly staked, so a lot ended up drooping to the ground. I was lazy and didn't take care of it myself, I'm not really a true gardener, obviously, but next year I think I will try the little yellow cherry tomatoes, the pear shaped ones. Maybe they will ripen quicker and I can get them before the bugs and squirrels do. I really had no idea the Brussels sprouts were such a late fall crop, so hopefully we'll get something from those. None of the other cruciferous things did particularly well, though we did finally get some decent kale. The plants never got very big, but the bugs didn't bother those. The broccoli on the other hand got huge, but very full of holes and produced such tiny florets. Not worth the amount of space they took up.

actually, there are several deceptive things about this picture. The brussel is "in" the raised bed, but I built the raised bed around it, after I planted it. My friend came up with the idea to put the board between it and the rest of the bed so I could fill the rest of the bed with soil and plant fall brassicas (on the right). I decided to put raised beds in mid-summer, and didn't want to disturb the brussel. There is at least 2 ft between plants, but since the brussel is leaning to the right it seems like there is less. But, this is my first year trying to grow a brussel sprout and I think I have beginners luck because I didn't do much except add manure and fertilize twice. I had no idea they grew so big!

Depending on the company some seed companies have a small drawing of what the new plants will look like when they develope their first leaves. most coriander I have had emerged from the soil with a long shoot then the seedleaf. Just enjoy the thrill of gardening as one of these days you will have a hard rain just after you plant mixing everything.