Hi everyone!!!!! :D I have missed all of you and think of you guys often! I am so sorry I haven't been around much over the last few months,I have been so busy redesigning existing beds,creating new beds and trying to keep this house together in the process...lol.... It has been a great season for me even though I lost 95% of my tomato plants due to that nasty late blight(which I hope I never see again in my lifetime!) There are lots of blooms this year from last years ws'ing adventure,I am still in awe of some of my beauties! And ever so grateful to all of you that have shared/traded seeds with me. When I look around out there I always think of how lucky I am to have found GW and the awesome people here! What did I grow before GW? I cant even remember...lol... Yesterday, I seen a Giant Swallowtail for the first time in my life! I almost fell over! The pics online really don't do them justice!:D I have had more hummingbirds visit this year, than ever before! Those little guys and gals really know how to put a smile on your face! I feel so rewarded for all of my hard work every time I see them hovering around out there! We successfully raised a few Monarch cats again this year. I don't think I could ever bore of watching them develop into such gorgeous creatures. It is such a shame how so many expire before they even get to be 1/2 an inch long. :( When it comes down to predators I swear those poor little guys hardly get a chance. So we went on cat hunts and collected as many as we could find. We found around 40 cats and only ended up with 3 butterflies,even with our protection,it is still a struggle! We finally put up our fence! WOO-HOO!!!!!!! No more nasty scowls from the neighbor next door anymore!!!! She hates my gardening, and me, more than the gardening...lol... No sweat off my back,I don't really care to befriend someone with such disrespect for our environment anyway!;) Anyway the fence is GREAT,but has added a whole new list of projects for me to do. Alot of plants needed to be relocated due to the change in the sun it gets now. But that is ok,we now have an awesome windbreak and more cooler areas to hang out in! I love my fence! :D I hit the jackpot at Lowes 2 times over the last month! The first time I got $167 worth of plants for $23 and the second round I got around $400 worth for $10!!!!! A total of 58 1 gallon and larger perennials for only $33!!! Our new nursery manager is the BOMB!!!!! He works at Phipps conservatory also and caters his ordering towards the master gardeners he knows. I was blown away by the selection he brought to the store and cant wait to make a few requests myself!;) He also took our phone number to tip me off to sales and clearances...how great is that? I feel like I died and went to heaven...lol... Sue:" I even searched around the net to see if maybe she was hanging at some other gardening forum and couldn't find her anywhere. " Not a chance...lol.....if I am online this is where I am,well other than doing searches,so if you don't see me here,I am just not online...lol....GW is the only gardening forum for me,it is such a great comfort zone and I feel so at home here! I am not knocking any other sites,there are other great ones out there,but for me GW is where I fit in! :) medo!!!!! I have missed you girl! Everytime I walk past something fragrant in my yarden,I think of you and your quest for as much fragrance as possible! I hope all is well with your family,how are the kids? Cuter than ever I am sure! ;)Hugs! Kate! You are another person I think of so often! I finally got an Astriana and thought of you immediately! I had such a hard time getting them to germinate so I said "heck with it" and bought one!...lol..I know the seeds were good ,it just seems it is one of those ones I have problems with for some reason...oh who knows..I figure with all the money I saved growing alot from seed,to buy a plant here and there is ok!;) Hugs and I hope all is going well for you and yours! Annette! Another one of my favorite people! Thanks for the kind words and know you would be missed by me also! ;) Janine...lol...you know me well!;) Remy!!! I never got the email! I didn't check my emails for quite awhile,but it still should be there and so far I have not seen it! :( Stupid computer!!!!!...lol..Thanks for the invite,I hope you had a blast! :) Speaking of Kym,anyone heard from her? I haven't browsed GW yet to see for myself. I am hoping she is ok,I am going to have to send her an email and check in on her.:) Sue,thanks so much for caring enough to hunt me down. It sure makes a person feel good to know they would be missed! :) Well,my cyatic is starting to act up,(that is another part of this gardening season...weekly trips to the Physical therapist! :( It is literally a pain in the rear...lol...) And I have emails to respond to....I would have gotten to this all as soon as Diana told me you guys were looking for me,but hubby was on vacation and I am sure some of you understand how they can keep you from doing what you have to do just being home...lol...Thank God for work!...lol.. Well I am off to my inbox,thanks again for all of your concern,again, you guys are the best! :D Hugs to all!!!! ~Angie

moving this on down...Ok?

The biggest factor in what will be effective against critters is the density of their population. I live by two large wild life preserves and have a neighbor next door who feeds the deer, so the population is very large and completely unafraid of humans. Rabbits also have come to love the diversity of plants in our yard, and because we have several acres of woods (why don't they just stay there???), their population is abundant as well. I have used sprays containing bitters, peppermint oil, eucalyptus oil, and any other smelly thing you can imagine, have gotten hair from the barbers, used fox and coyote urine (expensive as all get out and so nasty to use), even went so far as to use mothballs before I found out how toxic they are, had the men in my family run out in the early morning and pee around the plants, tried interplanting with mint, garlic, etc., and nothing worked for more than a short period. And I don't think I have a single plant out of the hundreds I grow that has not been browsed at one time or another, regardless of how many Pest Resistant lists they may be on. Soaps are effective if your critter population is not too large; contrary to what most folks think, it is not the perfumy smell of Irish Spring that repels, it is the tallow (fat) content of the soap. A friend who runs a commercial apple orchard tried it over the winter with absolutely NO success and felt it was actually detrimental in keeping pollinating bees away the following spring. Pepper sprays are a taste repellant--if you have a lot of deer or rabbits, they each need to take a bite of the plant to realize it's been sprayed as they don't tell each other that what you've sprayed tastes nasty, which means if you have lots of pests, they will still eat down your plants before they all become aware they've been sprayed. Actually, the one time I used a pepper-based spray, the rabbits ate everything I'd sprayed overnight--I think they thought it was a flavor enhancer. Several years ago I used a garlic based spray but there were certain things such as zinnias and sunflowers that were eaten off despite it. By early August the critters were used to it and ate anything and everything I had sprayed, and the only thing it continued to do was give me a huge craving for garlic bread every time I applied it. I have heard that Milorganite does work well as a repellant; however, it is not considered organic (it contains sludge), so I've never tried it. One of the great things about the 20% egg spray is that if you whir it up in a blender and spray it immediately, it will not clog up your sprayer. There is no need to ferment egg sprays--it is not the stink that keeps animals away, it is the smell of the protein from the eggs (if stinky smells kept rabbits/deer away, I'd simply drape my husband's socks around the yard). And at a concentration of 20% eggs, the spray does not wash away as quickly as one with a lesser content which means applications can be less frequent (you will need to experiment to determine what is necessary with your garden). Plants (such as lilies) which are deer and rabbit magnets I spray after every hard rain; other things get sprayed I would guess maybe every six weeks. The best testimonial I've had for this spray is from a friend of mine who lives on an island. Years ago a rabbit farmer on the island gave up his business and released dozens of rabbits, which, well, bred like rabbits. There are no natural predators on the island so the rabbits have destroyed almost every plant, even girdling large trees. I gave her the recipe for the egg spray and she has a garden again. She makes up several gallons of the stuff and sprays EVERYTHING. She even uses it over the winter, spraying in late fall and on days in the winter when the temperature reaches above freezing. The neighbors she has passed the recipe on to have had great success as well, and she kids me that they are going to erect a "St. Kate" statue in my honor, lol. I have also not seen any effect on wanted wildlife, such as bees, butterflies, frogs, toads, walking sticks, etc. I spray it on the plants next to the water garden and it has no effect on the tadpoles, polywogs, and dragon fly larvae. Of course, this means it will not be harmful to bad bugs either--you'll still have to use something to control insect damage (I use organic products with Neem oil for that). Forgive me if I sound overly enthusiastic about this, but it has worked so well for me and has made gardening fun again. I can go outside in the morning and look forward to seeing what is in bloom, NOT what has been eaten off during the night. Here's to a great gardening season! Kate

glad to hear it! Let's go people, there are more seeds to be sent. What wonderful donors.