We got several inches from Wednesday into late Thursday afternoon. I am now very grateful for living on a hill. My garden that looked like a lake at 6:00 am had NO standing water on it when I got home last night. Of course, all my broccoli plants are lying down but they are not snapped off so DH is supposed to straighten them up today and put support stakes behind them. Everything else came through pretty well. Tonight I am going to spray all the tomatoes with Daconil and then hope that they don't blight from being so wet. My peas are absolutely ecstatic with this weather, but they are in a raised bed. We are going to be picking and freezing a bunch of them this weekend. I am so VERY thankful that they didn't get blown away! Glib, I bet I feel toward rabbits like you feel toward deer. "I have a garden" should be all the reason needed to get a No Limit year-round permit!!! Edie

I have Salvia black and Blue beside Raspberry Wine monarda. A nice combo! Beware of the guarantica that is named Purple Magesty. I have found it to be as blue as the species, so don't waste your money! I took all of my species out. It was a lot and it was gorgeous, to put in the purple (more to my color scheme). How disappointing! There is a sky blue guarantica too. A neighbor has it "Argentina Skies". It is heavenly. girlgroupgirl

apple, I still say it isn't Fusarium. Fusarium does not cause fruit symptoms while certain of the foliage diseases do. Fusarium causes profound wilting of plants, which you haven't mentioned, while foliage diseases never do. The fact that your VF varieties did not do better, and the VF doesn't mean total resistance, it means increased tolerance, also tells me that it probably wasn't Fusarium or Verticillium. All NEW foliage infections are acquired by airborne means, while splashback infection can and does occur when the soil has been contaminated in previous years by spores/'bacteria, depending on which specific foliage diseases are at work. In addition, as I said above, Fusarium is only a problem where the gound doesn't freeze in the winter. And the lower branches are affected first when it's splashback reinfection. You haven't described any specific lesions on the leaves and it's those spots that can help diagnose what foliage infections you might be dealing with, thus give you some idea of how you might go about preventing those diseases. The four most common ones are: Early Blight ( A. solani) Septoria Leaf Spot Bacterial Speck Bacterial Spot Early Blight can appear either early or late in the season. While pictures are static and disease is progressive, you might want to take a look at some pictures of the above four to see if you can make any matches. it's important b'c there is excellent prevention and control for the first two, which are fungal, but not for the last two, which are bacterial. Hope that helps. Carolyn

Thatch is a build-up of organic matter which can include, dead grass leaves, stems, stolons, rhizomes, and overcrowded grass roots and lateral weed growth (Wikipedia). I can live with that definition. Key is build-up. You have one layer of fallen over dead grass. I don't think that meets the definition. I guess when I rake up the leaves I'm dethatching. Have you tried raking up the dead grass? The reason not to use a mechanical dethatcher is it is abusive to the turf. If you have stolons it will chop them into pieces. For St Augustine that can kill the plant. Zoysia is mostly spread with rhizomes, so you would not see it, but with a rake you can be a lot more selective as to how much of a beating the turf gets.