Hello again, Tirthendu Dey, Thanks for the confirmation that Kolkata and Calcutta are the same. "Coming back to the bird issue. I tried posting photos but it's not displaying." What file format are you using to post your photos? I submit fairly compact JPG files, many of which are only 1000 pixels wide. Incidentally, I may have already mentioned this, but you can click on the photos here to see a large version and then click on the "X" in the upper righthand corner of the large version to close it. I use concrete remesh wire to make "zinnia cages" to help support my zinnias in our considerable Kansas winds. Those same cages, or something very similar, could be used to support some sort of fabric netting to exclude birds. You mentioned mosquito nets as a possibility. Another possibility would be Bird Netting (that is a link to offerings from our Amazon). I don't know if you have an Amazon, but you might have a company that sells Bird Netting. I make my "zinnia cages" from concrete remesh wire that comes in large rolls. I think the roll I used was 100-foot long by 8 feet wide. This was part of a roll I was using. We should try to figure out how you can submit photos here. I click on "Photo" in the message editing line and navigate to a directory on my computer where I have suitable photos and I click on one and click "Open" to trigger its transfer to here. This potentially changing ominous behavior of birds is almost like a science fiction movie plot. More later. ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)

Kimmsr, thank you very much. That UC-Davis page was so interesting. Learned lots and lots from it. I have good news. Last night at 8 PM and 10 PM, I spotted only 5 total slugs near the squash, instead of the 30 to 60 I've seen on other nights. So either the slugs' numbers are thinning or they decided to remain inactive last night due to the cooler weather that reached down to 39 or 40 last night, according to WeatherUnderground. The good news is I didn't bother waking up at 3 or 4 in the morning for the first time in 4 nights. And all is well this morning--no new holes in the leaves. But the slugs were active yesterday night, but still no new holes; the flour works really well, especially in conjunction with the slug hunt. I apply a little more flour everyday, and use the protective boxes when it rains to prevent the flower from getting wet. Maybe my 3 squash that remain of the original 4 will survive. The biggest squash attached another runner to the fence yesterday and its 2 smallest leaves seem to be growing again, ever so slightly. I'm hopeful all 3 young squash will pull through :-) I also have another 3 squash growing inside in a styrofoam cup, ready for transplanting into the garden, if the ones outside don't make it, but I think they will thanks to the flour and the thrice-nightly slug hunt. Whew, the 3 squash came so perilously close to buying the farm. Next year, I'll be ready for those slugs, and will apply flour at the first signs of leaf munching, or maybe even before. Kimmsr, I loved the copper tape and copper foil barriers suggested by the UC professor. I may try that sometime too. Anyone know how copper tape and foil compare to the flour? The flour is pretty good. Like I said, I only saw about 3 slugs out of 200 (1.5 percent) that could slime their way through the flour. All the other slugs were just hanging out at the flour's edge. Makes me wonder if the flour did more than just stop their forward progression. Maybe the flour injured them somehow too? Anyway, the nightly hunt helped get rid of the few "mutant" slugs that the flour didn't stop.

"You know quite a bit about coffee . . . since they are saying that caffeine is highly water soluble, doesn't that mean that it would be washed out of the used grounds? And, therefore, J may not have good success in repelling slugs around her strawberries?" You raise a good point. I think caffeine is very water soluble. In fact, I think I read someplace that some coffee companies use water to create decaf. It may be that it's the texture of the grounds that bothers the slugs. Or I may be offbase. I think I remember reading that the grounds repel slugs, but it could have been anecdotal, too. If you don't want to buy beer for a slug trap, I think it's the yeast in the beer that attracts them. I just looked at the articles linked above, and the second one talks about using either beer or sugar water and yeast for the traps. I had always thought that dark roasts had more caffeine in them, because they tasted stronger. It turns out that they're darker because they're roasted more and the heat destroys some of the caffeine, so the light roasts do have more caffeine.

Dragonmist, Emma is right, I've been doing that with vines that have seed pods on them and not ripe, but the frost will do them in. I've gotten almost all the pods to ripen this way, but never gotten any roots on them. Look around and see if you have any chipmunks running around your garden beds. they love to bite right through the vine down and the bottom or anywhere they vine is growing. Just had them do that to 2 of my vines this afternoon very daring and bold little critters too. I was right beside the vines on either side of me. All of a sudden I heard this rustling noise and there they where, 2 of them. In less than 30 seconds, each one took a chomp on a different vine and scouted right off. Fran