I grafted an unknown early peach that my neighbor has grown for 10 years or more ( It was there when he bought the house). It's very delicious but as soon as it got old enough to have good fruit, I only had 2 years of sweet peaches and the last 2 years when the tree flowered in Jan. not Feb. the weather has been too cool and overcast and the ripening peaches all taste terrible. The same for the neighbors tree that I made the graft from. I could just wait and see again what will happen. Still, it's a cheerful sight in bloom and the bees are grateful for the pollen to bring back to their hives. I like to sit and listen to them. It's one of the earliest trees to wake up so I called it my rooster tree but now has been named Cogburn's Peach by my friend. Cogburn's peach has been such a good tree for my neighbor and many people enjoy it because it hangs over the fence and the sweet peaches hang down over the sidewalk. There never is any mess because everyone eats the peaches as soon as they are getting ripe. I would trade tangerines in January for peaches later on and the super sweet ones were so much better than the just ripening ones that people got hanging over the sidewalk as they walked by. I wanted my own tree so much in case something ever happened to the neighbors tree. We never could find out what it was. That tree is looking stressed out now but mine looks in the prime health of its young adult life. I would hate to remove it but I worry about the loss of our cold and wonder if I wouldn't do better with something more reliable. About the strawberry fields next to Disneyland. They were owned by an old farmer and although Disney tried to buy his fields many times, he refused to sell. The soil in that part of Anaheim is so wonderful. It's fine and sandy river bed soil. Whenever they work on the roads, you can see the magnificent soil that was paved over for parking lots and hotels and the parks. I would love to have that soil. Anyone who grows crops would love that soil. Strawberries do very well here. You see them here and there but mostly now nearer the beach cities. The children sold the fields right after he died and they put parking lots on them. It was very sad to see it happen that way. I wish they would preserve some of the agricultural heritage of early Orange County. I remember when my parent's home had orange groves for miles along the roads and the air was sweet with orange blossoms. There are a few remaining orange trees in backyards of that neighborhood ( built in 1963) and they still produce great oranges today. The builders left some of the trees instead of knocking all of them down. The same thing happened when they built an industrial park on an orange grove. They left some rows of trees instead of planting grass like all the others did. The value of the strawberry fields on Harbor Blvd. was too tempting because of its proximity to the Disney resorts and being on the main road where all the hotels are. The same thing is happening in Irvine. Soon all the farms will be gone forever and replaced with planned association neighborhoods and shopping.

>>Konrad, so had the wasps had entered the bee hives and eaten the honey? I had thought that the honey bees would have been able to fight them off? Yes,..usually a strong hive can fight them off, this was a weak hive from a swarm and was building up, it was about a month after I hived them when it happened, bees starved, lots were heads down in empty cells. They had too much room, I should have pushed them into one box. Always something new and still learning,..never ending. Another weird thing this year, didn't get any carrots!..Seeds never germinated! Looks like I got some old seeds, didn't buy any this year, the ones I still had from who knows how long ago, ...they need a long season, didn't re-seeded because of it. Do you buy new seeds every year?

Jay, We hit 28 degrees this morning so it was colder here than it was there. How strange is that? Love County's Mesonet station had the lowest low for this morning when I looked at the map, but I didn't look later in the day to see if any corrected data had popped up. Sulphur and Tahlequah bottomed out at 29. We also had the highest high--73 at the mesonet station but it hit 75 at our house. From 28 this a.m. to 73/75 this afternoon was a pretty big change. I wish the weather would settle down so we could get on with planting the warm-season crops. I do have tomato plants in the ground and corn, but have been waiting to see what next week's forecast does before I plant anything more. My pepper plants either need to go into the ground or I need to pot them up to bigger pots if I am going to hold them for a while longer. Our soil temps are decent and our high temps are nice, but once or twice a week we hit the lower 30s or upper 20s. I hope you don't see the 100s in May...but it isn't like any of us have any say in the matter. We usually don't warm up as early as you do so I don't expect 100s until June. Even some potatoes that were covered with a row cover that should have given them 4 degrees of freeze protection had fairly significant freeze damage this morning when I uncovered them, so I believe the temperature was lower at the ground level than the 28 degrees recorded at 5' above ground. I'm trying to remember the last year we had a halfway normal weather/gardening year at our house. Maybe 2010. It seems like it was 100 years ago. Dawn

Just converted to hi eff condensing gas boiler condensing, 94%. I can speak from personal experience, you will see a difference as far as cost goes. I replaced an 85% eff. oil boiler that was five years old. My basement was a constant 78, I don't live in the basement , waste. Combustion air as well as exhaust air piped thru PVC pipe out of the side of the house. An outside thermostat is also used to modulate the boiler temp, you don't need full boiler temperature when its 45 outside. As far as your kitchen being cold it won't help that, there is very little residual heat that emanates from these units. Your kitchen may not have enough heating element or there are serious drafts that need plugging. This is not a cheap undertaking , although there are rebates available. Lastly this is not a diy job. You are dealing with gas and toxic fumes. I've got a enough experience to know what should be done professionally. Before you do anything get an energy audit, this will give some insight to what direction to go. Most states have organizations who will do this for free.