What makes this even stranger is that I have extensive ornamental gardens too--all mulched with wood chips. In fact the veggie garden is only a couple of feet from very large beds on two sides--no digging at all in the ornamental beds. I've spoken to several people who are pretty good on wildlife and guesses range from skunks to raccoons--though the coon would have had to climb the fence--and I've never heard of them doing that unless they're after corn. And I've seen no scat around the yard, and when I had a coon a few years ago and had only a single strand electric fence and a short galvanized wire fence that I stepped over, the coon didn't attempt to enter the garden until the first corn was just about ready. I just hope it never happens again; after all how long before it starts on the bed?. I'm quite nervous about tonight, I must admit.

Beautiful indeed! Lycoris radiata. Here is a link that might be useful: Lycoris radiata

Pat, Not all of my tomato plants are that big, but most of the cherries make big plants and Tess's Land Race which is a currant size is normally a huge plant. My largest plant this year is a greek tomato called Santorini, (thanks Lynn for the seed) but makes a small tomato. I am 5'6", and it is way over my head already. It seems to me that when I lived in southern Oklahoma the prevailing wind was normally from the SW and when we saw a storm brewing in Texas in Montague County we prepared for the worst because it always seemed to come straight for us. The big tornado they had there seemed to follow that same logic. In my area now, the wind seems to come from the south, although Kansas does share a few storms with us, but high wind is not the norm for us here, . I also live in a rather congested lake community and have a lot of buildings near my garden, both mine and neighbors. Since I live on a slight curve, I pretty well have a building providing protection from all directions, plus tall trees everywhere. So when I mounted my arch, my thought process went to sunshine availability rather than protection from the wind. At the time, it was the gateway to my garden so I just angled it so both sides got sunshine. After extending my garden and putting in a walkway, I decided to move it. Since nothing could be planted under it because of dense foliage, it just made sense to me to put it over the walkway. This does limit the sunshine a little, but shade doesn't seem to be a bad thing this year. It is hard to know what to plan for since my Spring weather is normally very wet. I have a few raised beds which I had planned to use for spring crops because of the excessive Spring rain keeping my garden too wet to plant, but changed my mine and planted asparagus in one and strawberries in another. The third will probably be used for onions next year, since mine had to tread water for a few weeks this Spring. However, when the rain stops and the heat is excessive those raised bed dry out too fast and require more water. I can't win. If I had a tomato henge like Diane and Steve have built, I would probably have welded a ring to the top of each post and run cable from one pole to the other across the length of the row and have those rings with a clip on them on the cables. When conditions were normal I would have nothing on the clips, but for hail threats, I would clip on a big tarp (probably many sewn together), and for excessive heat I would have fabric ready to go on. I wouldn't worry about it being shade cloth since sheets sown together from the thrift shop would serve the same purpose. I would probably hit the thrift shops all winter so I could find all white ones. Of course I don't know how I can fix mine. Maybe I need to hire Steve to weld me four posts like his for my outside rows and I can use my cages in between. LOL Diane tried to pass it off as someone elses idea, but I have compared the two and I would easily choose Diane's. I am laughing as I type this because I am trying to improve on an already great system which is always what I accuse my husband of doing. He always waits until I have finished something then tells me how I could have done it better. Even his friends ask for his advice after they finish something, then sometimes make the changes. I tell him that he is one of the best managers that I have ever known but that he never had an original idea in his life. (grin) At our house the garden is mine, but Al does seem to enjoy playing with it a little in the Spring when the weather is still cool. He will till, move trellis, pick up compost, shovel it all out of the truck and put it where I want it, all those things to get the garden ready, but each year he SUGGESTS that I put things like trellis and such in a permanent place and run irrigation to it. Maybe...some year. With old age creeping up on me (not here yet of course), I know that would be a good idea.

Julianna, There is a weed in my area that looks very similar to tomato seedlings when it first emerges ... that is, it has a reddish young stem, hairy, very similar leaf form, and stands nice and erect like a young tomato seedling. Later it becomes very obvious that this weed isn't a tomato plant ... say when it gets about 6 inches tall or so. It is something like a goldenrod, but not the same exactly. It's a very common weed in the Midwest and I've seen it arrive with manure, compost, etc., as it is also common in barnyards. If I can find the weed in a wild plant reference, I will post a link. I often see it along turn rows and inside no-till fields so it is somewhat resistent to pre-emergent herbicides and Roundup I think. Bill