Oh, Sandy, that buck story is hilarious. LOL. As for an intercom system, I don't have one of those now, but did when my girls were babies. My dad made it for me. I was always afraid I wouldn't hear them, but they both had great lungs. Once, he rigged up an old school bell to my phone. It's not funny, yet it was, but the reactions of company when the phone rang, would crack you up. A couple of folks were out the door before they realized what it was. I have been able to have the windows open all day the past week, and it is neat to hear all the noises from outside, waterfall included. I have to be careful though, cause sounds like that probably keep my husband up at night. Poor, wonderful guy. The things he will do for me. When I first found out 2 years ago, it rattled me a little, but it is just one of those things that have to be taken in stride. I've been keeping myself up to date on the progress of research into Retinitus Pigmentosa, which is what I have, plus the hearing loss, and things look promising. Will wait and see, and in the meantime, I will walk verryy carefully. A sense of humor helps alot, and I told my daughter, who is 20, that someday she could call me Helen Keller. She said, "Who's that?" I just shook my head and laughed. Gosh, I love those girls. :)

Sylvia, I have taken your suggestion to heart and started a little journal. That's an excellent idea, and it will help me a lot next season to keep these lessons in mind. This is only my second season with any type of garden at all, and my first where I've had any real planning or thought go into it, and I'm learning a lot - thanks to this forum, in particular. Mrs. TLC, I don't think I can restart my peas - the area that they were in is now heavily shaded by the four foot high bean plants that tower over them. I think that's what did the peas in the first time - I had no idea that beans flew out of the ground so fast. Next year, the peas go on the sun side of the beans! So now, I've seeded that area with some lettuce - we gobble down enough salad that we can always do with some more, and they might do better than the peas with the partial shade. Alan

Thanks, dj! Small pots, mobility, yeah that was part of the reason. Also didn't have the space when I started, and I learned a valuable lesson about hot heads and cool feet--much like Clematis vines. And it's definitely not a competition. Always learning, experimenting and applying! I certainly learned that my NuMex Twilight grown in a slightly larger pot was at least 50% bigger than its sibiling, so I don't think you can overpot these plants. Gary, the real Peruvian Serlano is mild pepper and has a cherry/tomatoey flavor. Mine weren't the juiciest, and since it's my first year, I'm not sure if that's typical. The plant spent a lot of the season with curled up leaves, so it wasn't happy about something. The hot Peruvian Serlanos are probably between a Jalapeno and a Chiltepin for heat. Good flavor with some heat. I think the rules of the seed swap dictate no "John's Face Melter"-type hybrids, but I'll be happy to send you some seeds via PM. That plant is quite prolific and still has ripening peppers, even though it's started to cool off here in the PNW. --Byron.

"1. Cocoons! There are a gazillion of them in there! I've been catching as many as I can. How thorough are you at sifting them out?" the first few times I did a harvest I did the same and tried to sift out every egg, it was soooo tedious, but I think it's a good idea in the beginning to try and return as many eggs to the worm farm to get the population going. by the third time I harvested the castings, I figured if it was going to be this hard, it just wasnt going to work, so now I quickly sift through to get the worms out and any eggs I see, and just leave it at that. "2. Scraps! How much not quite ready stuff is in your finished vermicompost?" a bit, i get the leaf rake (a plastic one) and gently scrape away any big stuff on top, anything small I just leave in there because I figure it's all good organics for the soil :) "Just to give me a data point on how anal I'm being: How long does it take you to harvest a standard Rubbermaid tote? I've got two hours into it, and I figure that I'm halfway done. But I was drinking beer...." well the beer might slow things down, but it will make the time go quicker LOL (beer! now why didnt I think of that when I was doing it) ;)