1. Different soil conditions call for different strategies. My home garden is very rich, tending toward clay. My new community garden was fertile, but very sandy. It's a whole new ballgame! 2. Many vegetables can be put out or seeded "as soon as the soil can be worked", but results vary. This year, I learned: a) If you cover your pea rows with clear plastic you'll get nearly 100% germination, and a crop a week or 2 earlier. Without the plastic, many of them rot. b) Spinach liked to be started under plastic as well c) Brussels Sprouts love going out as early as possible d) Give broccoli a couple of extra weeks before transplanting. If they go out too early, you get small heads. e) Lettuce transplants can go out first thing. They do much better under cloche or cold frame rather than "naked" but also prefer to remain in the house an extra couple of weeks. They also liked to be seeded under plastic. f) Potatoes planted out first thing will just sit there and do nothing. Next year try planting some over a warm compost pile... 3. High density planting results in smaller yields. Exception: Bush beans don't seem to care, but don't expect much from the second flowering. 4. I'm going to have to find a cantaloupe that resists mildew well if I'm going to be able to grow any (grrr!) 5. You can germinate carrots and bush beans well in sandy soil in hot weather if you spread a thin layer of straw over the planting beds to help retain moisture. 6. Swiss Chard really *loves* leaf mulch (kale OTOH appeared to be indifferent) 7. If you hill potatoes with straw, moles (or voles) will move in, and snack on your spuds. If you hill them with fall leaves, you may get brown spots in your potatoes (tannins?) Noticed brown in the veins of my leaf lettuce as well... 8. Volunteer tomato plants will produce a crop if we get a warm fall. 9. Green tomatoes stored with apples will continue to ripen right through until Christmas, regardless of size/maturity level at picking 10. If you don't thin your carrots enough you get bags and bags of baby carrots. After working through this, you realize that bigger *is* better, at least when it comes to carrots... 11. Just because spinach did well in the fall last year doesn't mean it will do well this year. 12. 4 ft is not a tall enough a fence to discourage deer 13. Given their choice of everything in the garden, rabbits prefer green beans (assuming you're out of sunflower or curcurbit sprouts) 14. You can compost a squirrel in about a week, if conditions are good (and around here, conditions are *always* good lol!) 15. A little humanure goes a long way. Two 5 gallon pails in a 4x4x4 composter is plenty. If you put 3 times that amount in, be prepared for a lot of the nitrogen to gas off, and for your neighbors to start making inquiries... Cheers, Tim

Stage Rat, thanks so much. I googled it and that is what it is. I will go right out and dig it up. I don't want those in my flower beds. I wish all my flowers looked that healthy though. I forgot to mention lesons learned about which containers worked best for me. My favorite is the round containers that I get cakes or cookies in (also an excuse to buy them). I make newspaper pots, and they are so much easier to plant out than to try and get the babies out of a milk bottle or 2L bottle. I think the newspaper helps the soil also. I tear off the top as I am dropping them in the hole so that they don't wick away the water. All of mine that were planted that way are doing the best. Also, I put a small water bottle in the center and use plastic shower caps (16 for $1) from the dollar store on top of them--it works great. The second favorite is the 1/2 size stem table aluminum pans from Sam's. The shower cap fits on them also with a small water botter to hold it off the babies. I think I will learn many more lessons from the responses to this thread. Thanks again for helping me ID the plant. Also thanks to everyone who shared their lessons learned. It is a great help. Jeane

April 2007 SLUGS IN PAPOU�S YARD in 2004: � In the Spring 2004 I noted one slug on one of the leaf of Sun Power in Garden 5. It was the first time ever that I became aware that there were slugs in my gardens. � After a day of heavy rain on July 16, 2004, I noted dozen of slugs all over the Sun Power and quit after removing and killing about 10 slugs. The Sun Power is infested with slugs. � Following hints by BigGuy and Gayle, I found hundred of slugs on the lawn after a rainfall. The rain has forced the slugs to come out of the ground, and they travel over the grass. � To destroy slugs, you can hand pick them and put them in a glass bottle containing about 2 inches of vinegar (acetic acid). The slugs die instantly. Liquid ammonia also is effective and even better because it creates nitrogen which plants love. � You create "slugs baits" where slugs will be attracted to. Examples: 1) a carpet left on the ground near your compost pile; 2) a thick layer of wet newspaper again left on the ground in the vicinity of the compost pile (which is away from your hosta beds); 3) use Sluggo around each hosta and slugs that make it into the garden will be attracted to the Sluggo and when they eat it they die; 4) you sink a container filled with beer level with the ground. Slugs will enter the container and will drown. This beer setup can be also near the compost pile. � After a rainfall, slugs are forced out of the ground and you can see them all over the lawn; they travel over the grass at whatever attracts them first�or the most. Eliminate these loose slugs by spot spraying the lawn with diluted ammonia. Attach a container filled with ammonia to the end of the hose and adjust the outlet so that water will mix with the ammonia in a 1 to 10 ratio approximately. This method is fast and efficient and provides nutrient to the lawn. � After a rainfall is the best time to cut the grass. Keep it short. The new lawnmower picks up the grass clippings and may also suck in the slugs that were travelling on the grass. USING AMMONIA AS A TREATMENT (Best method) Irene, here is part of an article by Bob Olsen of the American Hosta society. This was in the Hosta Journal a few years back. Larry Clemmons, an accomplished hosta grower from Dubuque, had an almost slug-free gorgeous garden last year while many of his friends from nearby towns were being overrun. Unlike the beer and lightweight chemicals they were using, Larry was spraying the hosta once a week or so with a dilute solution of plain old ammonia. The slugs hate the ammonia and the plants love the nitrogen. He uses a regular inexpensive tank and nozzle sprayer and went over and down into each plant-and he has a lot of them. He sprays the hostas with a dilute (4:1 or even weaker) solution of water and household ammonia in the evening once a week-more often in the spring or with a lot of rain. It would take him no more than two hours a week and there were almost no slug holes. The folks visiting from Iowa City which was being inundated by mollusks were astounded by his lush foliage just a few miles away and many have adopted his system. Don' Well, that should settle it. No one in their right mind would try to argue with the late hosta legend Papou. Jon

Just floating by and saw this thread. I've been married for 8 1/2 years and learned a lot from my own. Will pass it on here for what it's worth: My best friend and I did my entire wedding...for 500 people. I darn near died by the end of it, trying to save money and 'do it right'. I had a big wedding to please my husband. I picked the reception hall to please my husband...yaddayaddayadda. In the end, I realized that I should have gone for the wedding that *I* wanted. Small, family, and extremely close friends. I was exhausted adn wiped out halfway through the day. Didn't help that we had an unseasonable heat wave and I was wearing about 4000 pounds of beaded satin. Or that the reception halls didn'thave a/c..and that my husband was about to faint from heat stroke so we drove around and around in the limo between the service and the reception because it had a/c. Or that the friends who were supposed to help with the reception set up split on my caterer to go to the wedding and she was about to have a breakdown. And my husband indeed ended up spending our wedding night in the ER of the hospital that I worked in, getting pumped with IV fluid. So as a veteran of a guerrilla wedding, these are the lessons: Hire a wedding coordinator if you can at all afford anything at all. Better a smaller wedding that is perfectly put together than a monstrosity that can draw blood. Let HER run around trying to find the perfect site while you wait for her call. I would call one in a heartbeat now and give her my left arm. If you're going to spend money on anything, figure out what the ONE thing is that will thrill you to pieces. Is it the site? Is it the gown? Is it the honeymoon? THEN DO IT. Skimp in other places. For my best friend, it was her rings...So she spent her money on having them designed exactly the way that she wanted to... Hire a professional to do your pictures and your video. I had seriously good videographer friends, but they were unable to compensate for the fact that the sun was going down and blaring right behind us. I have a lovely video of us in sillohette. :P Your pictures and your video are really what you will have left 10 years from now. Make them good ones. Things that you will never use again: the cake cutting knife, the toasting goblets, the shoes, the bustier, any of that stuff. You will dust or pack your guestbook. Your favors, the attic. Some folks actually keep the wedding candle if you use one. I kept mine in my bedroom and burned it when I was in labour wtih our two children. But that was the only trinket from this party that I used. I dropped massive bucks on cleaning and packing my dress, and it's in my closet. I'm sure that my daughter will hate it when her day comes, but my dress was the thing that I spent money on..that I cared about. So it's worth it. Spend more time with family and friends in the planning. Let your maiden aunt Selma help you with the rehearsal dinner, et al. None of that has to be picture perfect. Again, save the money on the important things to you. Let your family be involved. Don't spaz over the details. You read enough bride's magazines and suddenly the thought "maybe I do need a silver jam spreader" will go through your head...THAT is the point where you need to take a day off and clear your head! Showers? Go for housewares. Be practical. I have silver trays for days and unless you're really Martha Stewart, the odds of you doing anything but occasionally griping and polishing them are slim. Not to say just go for the Pyrex or the Revereware, but seriously...a good coffeemaker with a spare in the garage will be used more and appreciated more than the push up bra from Victoria Secret. ;) I had 50 women at my lingerie shower. I still have stuff in plastic boxes that have never been used. But I used my fancy towels until they were dead. As my sister of 17 years once said "go for the linens!" LOL High end cotton sheets...don't take back the extras. A few years later, you'll pull out that gift and it will be like Christmas. It's very cool. Have them pack a box of food for you at the reception. It's very difficult to eat, even under the most perfect circumstances at a reception. People are too busy talking to you. My first bite since am was about 6pm at night (just before we left for the hospital). Practice saying "it's so nice of you to come!" Use that line when you run out of things to say. Fatigue can make it difficult to be chatty. Never, under any circumstances, rent anything that someone else who is completely trustworthy, will return for you if you can avoid it. Even your mother. I had a friend who's 'friend' once 'forgot' to return a bunch of rented linens. Left at the site in a garbage bag. Bride came home from her honeymoon, only to find that she had to pay to replace all of this stuff. Someone else had to pay for candelabra. These are nasty surprises from people who've just plunked down a LOT of money. Better to pay more for a rental company who just comes and gets it at the end of the party so you have no worries or disasters to return to. Plan this day in a way that you can enjoy the process of getting there...AND enjoy the day itself. Delegate everything that you possibly can. Know that somethihng somewhere will end up less than perfect, but that's okay, that's what happens. In the end, you'll still end up married to the person that you love and it's the stuff that funny stories are made of later. Anyway, this is merely JMO. Have a wonderful time and wonderful wedding days...