Thanks for the info on both the peas and the adds. I was happy when I checked back late this evening and they'd switched adds to something that wasn't an expanding/shrinking one. I am all for a company that operates a free site to recoup the costs with ad revenue but it doesn't have to be annoying. Though I must say, I will not soon forget that Imodium is the only FDA approved drug for my 6-11 year old (my eldest is 4, so we've got a ways to go). And yes, tons of fruits and veggies is a sure way to avoid needing the product. If I didn't live in Microsoft town, I would consider switching. Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's gardening adventure

Now, I am thinking of planting a second crop, but am not sure when to do it. Check with your state's Extension Service. Each county should have it's own Cooperative Extension Office which provides free publications and information for the asking. They will have valuable vegetable/gardening tables available specifically for your area determined by universities and horticultural research scientists who have collected data from growing those crops in your state. Your tax dollars are already paying for this service so you may as well get some use out of it. Vegetable Planting and Planning Calendar for Missouri (download the pdf) complete with spring and fall planting dates (underneath the spring planting dates for appropriate crops), how much to plant per person, etc. They can also tell you the average last frost date for your area and ideal planting times for specific crops and varieties in your area. See how detailed this example is:

I load up on several varieties of onion plants in the spring, transplant them as early as I can, harvest them as I want to use them all summer. I harvest the rest of them in the fall when they mature and dry, and store and use them all winter. I still have a few left over from last year (storage variety (Copra)), and am just recently harvesting sweet onions from this year's production (Candy and Red Candy Apple).

Dorothy, I am fairly certain we had the great snap pea year that you and I both remember in 2009. It seems like it was the same year that we had a great broccoli harvest in May, tons of cabbage (I made sauerkraut and I think you made sauerkraut and/or kimchi ), oodles of snap peas and then all those pounds and pounds of peaches and plums in June and July. I remember that I had trouble keeping up with the fruit processing because the peas produced more deeply into the summer than usual---at least until mid-June and possibly later. I was still trying to harvest and process the peas, and then the jalapenos, peaches, plums and tomatoes were piled up all over the house waiting to be eaten, processed and/or given away. I believe you and I both had almost more harvest of most things than we could handle that year. Does that sound familiar to you? We started 2009 in drought that was carrying over from the last half of 2008 and we had bad wildfires in March and early April, particularly April 9, 2009. Then, the rain returned with a vengeance and our gardens went totally bonkers. I actually kept a written harvest log that year, likely because the yields were so good, and I found it tonight....and it has month and day on each page where I kept notes, but not the year. Still, I am almost positive it was 2009. Eventually I ran out of time and stopped logging the harvest. Some of my notes show I harvested 4 lbs of tomatoes in April, 20 lbs in May, over 80 lbs. in June and then I stopped logging the tomato harvest. I had all those peas as mentioned earlier, 30 lbs of cabbage (hence, all the sauerkraut), and I didn't keep a page on the broccoli harvest, but it was a lot. That had to be 2009 because we had the monster record rainfall at the end of April and only the onions and potatoes suffered because they were too waterlogged for too long. Everything else grew like Jack's Beanstalk. At first, I was disappointed in the waterlogged root crops, but then all the non-root crops did so well that I didn't have time to worry and fret over it. I'd love to have a 2009 type year again. With the fruit trees exposed to such cold weather this week, the fruit harvest will not equal 2009's, if there is a harvest at all. I did love being able to put the tomato plants in the ground so very early in March in 2012 and I loved the harvest, although preserving it almost killed me. However, the snap peas were pitiful that year---probably the worst crop of snap peas ever. It was hard to keep up with the beans and tomatoes, but then, I wasn't spending time putting up any cool-season stuff so, in a harvest and canning sense, it was a poor spring but a great summer. Mia, If I direct sow lettuce in the ground in March, every bird and every little animal that can creep, crawl or slither into the garden will eat it almost the minute it sprouts. I think it is because there is not a lot of green available in the pastures yet. If I direct sow lettuce seed in the ground in April, there's so much other green stuff growing that the animals don't bother it. I'm in a really rural area so I don't know if whatever gets your lettuce are the same things there in the city that I have here in the middle of nowhere. I mostly just grow lettuce in containers early in the year, and do a second sowing in the ground in April Sometimes I do a third sowing in late April or early May, and it is is a smallish container (small enough that Tim and I can move it, but too heavy for me to carry alone), That last sowing can be moved into heavy shade as the weather heats up in June. I don't have to use blood meal to protect anything most years because our garden fence is almost 100% rabbit proof, although occasionally a tiny baby cottontail gets inside. I will use blood meal if I need to, and it is a great source of nitrogen even if I don't really have to use it to repel bunnies. However, it attracts buzzards, who give me the creeps by circling the garden all day long. Some of my oh-so-funny neighbors (love, love, love them I do!) stop by to ask if I am about to kick the bucket because the vultures are circling. I really want a good pea harvest this year. Last year's was pretty good, but all that does is make me want for this year's to be even better. When the snap pea harvest is poor, we just don't have snap peas at all because I refuse to pay the prices the stores charge for organic sugar snap peas. Dawn