Well, from 40 at night to 80 day is already a 40 degree climb in 8 hours or so. I don't know how a new, tiny seedling might respond to a 50 degree climb, or 60 degree... because the temp in the jug is bound to be 10 or 20 degrees higher, don't you think? I wouldn't cover them, but that's just off-the-top-of-my-head reaction. I'd be afraid of frying them. I'm certainly no tomato expert, though. (But I don't think I'd do that to any seedling). I know some folks put jugs of water in the tomato bed. They're supposed to heat in the sun and maintain higher temps at night. Never tried it myself, so I can't comment on results from it. Karen

Jay, Interesting review. You grew lots of plants that I have never heard of but sound interesting. Some of your list is also on my 'always grow' list as well. It amazes me that your plants still look nice and are still producing when mine have been gone so long. Although all plants always seem to thrive on the many spring showers that we have, I think it adds to the blight issues on tomatoes. My plants don't last nearly as long as yours. This year, I didn't start watering my garden plants early enough and some suffered from neglect. Since I rarely water 'in ground' in a normal year, I just didn't realize how dry they were. By the time I started to water, they already had issues. I have read several years now about the commercial types of tomatoes and I think you sent me seeds for one, but I have not grown it yet. I am going to add either the Campbell or Heinz one next year. Are those plants small enough that you could crowd them a little? I had lovely tomatoes this year, but they all had a lot of juice and I need a good, heavy producer that is a little drier. One batch of salsa that I made this year was just too thin. I labeled it as such and plan to use it in cooking. I used a pint of it this week for some Spanish Rice and it was great, so it won't go to waste. Almost all of my tomato plants were pulled early, but a few survived because they were just in out of the way places. Of those, Sioux seems to be doing the best. It has received some water because I water the peppers that are close to it. I think it might be a good one to leave in the garden for a later crop in my climate. I may consider starting it a little later and putting it in where I take out spring crops. It seemed to tolerate the seriously hot and dry summer that we had this year. I will certainly have to plant Royal Hillbilly again because it produced the largest tomatoes I grew this season. I didn't take it out, but did cut it back drasticly. It is still alive but I don't know if it will produce again. Besides your tomato plants looking great in late August when mine are long gone, I did notice a couple of other things that were different. Did you plant more than one kind of cowhorn okra? I planted the cowhorn like the package I sent to you and mine is ten feet tall. It produces mostly on the top and I have to grab the plants and pull them down so I can cut it. Your cowhorn appeared to be short and bushy. In fact, I planted mine near a walkway thinking it would be easy to pick from there and instead I have to shove it away to make it down the path. The taste is great but my location choice was poor. I think I will work on the soil along the north fence line so I can plant this at the very north end next year. The other thing that I noticed is your Black Cherry tomatoes. Is that the size you always get? Did you use commercial seed or one from a friend? I have planted seeds from several commercial sources and my Black Cherries have larger fruit than yours. In your picture of the cherry tomatoes, your Sungold looked as large as the Black Cherry. In my garden, Sungold is a normal sized cherry tomato, but Black Cherry is a large cherry, with all of them being much larger than Sungold. Your three favorite cherries look like great choices to me since I love both Black Cherry and Sungold. We ate a lot of cherry tomatoes because I planted heavy thinking I would dry a few. I was not happy with the results, so we just ate a lot of them. LOL Your apple tree looks great. I don't have fruit trees, but my DIL picked her tree and brought me a huge box of Granny Smiths from it. It took me all week to get them processed but it is worth it. Be sure to make some 'Apple Pie Jam'. She said she only brought me a third of what her tree produced. I made jam, apple pie filling, apple butter, apple sauce, and canned plain apples for use in baking. I did the plain ones because I could get a ton of those into a jar and I was getting tired of processing apples. LOL I would think they would be perfect for a huge apple cobbler mid-winter. We are having nice weather and I haven't been able to take advantage of it. I went to the doctor last Tuesday with a request for meds and thought I had a sinus infection that was playing havoc with my ears. I started 3 kinds of meds that night and got worse each day. Yesterday I couldn't stand it any longer and went back for new meds. I knew I needed an antibiotic and kept trying to take that one but felt that it was probably the one making me sick. I seem to be tolerating this one OK, but I am trying to stay away from pollens until I am better. I enjoyed looking at your pictures and felt as if I had strolled through your garden. I will continue to pray for your step-Dad and assume his health will improve after his treatment. I think you are the type to take a lot of responsibility onto your shoulders, so be careful and don't try to run faster than you have strength. You need to stay strong and healthy.

Hi anne marie, sorry to hear about your baby : ) I went through the same thing with my guy about a year ago. He had a small lump which I (and the tooth doc) suspected was a fatty lipoma. But it was troubling, in the vaccination region on his shoulder (my mother lost three cats to fibrocarsinoma at injection sites), and other opinions were it *could* be cancer. Wait and watch was an option with my regular vet. At the time, I thought the best thing to do was just take it off right away (surgery was unsuccessful with my mother's cats as it wasn't removed with clear margins). The cancer surgeon saw him and thought 95% chance it was cancer. So, off it came. He was 12 at the time. He was very healthy and asymptomatic of any problems other than allergy issues he's had all his life. He has never been the same since that operation though and I feel so bad about putting him through that. I didn't want to wait, though, as early detection is key. It was, in fact, a fatty lipoma. There were further complications, though. A small part of the incision failed to heal (costing another $2K with the dermatologist even though over those few months it healed through only one course of different antibiotics and use of another salve). He lost two pounds and seems unable to gain it back. He also seems to have been traumatized by the whole thing (horrible massive surgical incision and two weeks in a cage). As soon as he was let out, he jumped up and curled up on my shoulder and has been stuck there ever since. He wants to be held all the time now (sweet problem, but it saddens me what he might have felt or be feeling). Otherwise, he seems pretty happy and healthy though. I do feel it has actually taken time off his life though. He seems old now rather than the ever-youthful guy he was before. If you get to the point of removing it, I would go to a specialist who is a very experienced and skilled cancer surgeon rather than a GP. You might contact a University hospital or local oncologist to see who they use (which is what I did). As in people, the skill of the surgeon is critical to success. I wanted someone who knew cancer intimately and as the devil that it is. Another thing. My other kitty was terribly sick at the same time with heart and kidneys failing. One thing that has really come to light with these two is how delicate cats are to stress. I would never have thought so with these two, but all the visits, prodding, and invasive treatments really showed up in their physical health and seemed to accelerate it all. They are very tough decisions to make, especially for a layperson. Best of luck with your kitty. I would definitely get another opinion, even if that's three. Maybe a specialist next time. Dermatologist? Eye doctor? Oncologist? They may have seen this before or have suggestions on ointments, compresses, or whatever else, to try before getting invasive. Best of luck with you two : ) Hope it clears up real soon and makes it easy for you. (Try googling online too for images that may look like your kid's eye.)

I brought this up to the top after listening to a radio programme about the US on-line organisation called Mom's Rising. This is a fast growing group concerned with the lack of maternity leave/benefits/women's rights which are taken for granted by us in Europe and many other countries in the 'under-developed' world but are not available to American women. Apparently the US is on a par with Swaziland, Togo and Papua-New Guinea when it comes to fair treatment for working mothers, mothers-to-be or mothers who want to return to the work place. Cindy, I was visited recently by an old friend who has taught for the last twenty years plus in the 'reception' class of an Infant school ie. the youngest children who start full time at four years old. She pointed out that these days all schools with pupils up the age of eleven (when they transfer to secondary school) have to offer/provide extra care either before or after school for any parent that requires it. She said several of her four-year-olds arrive at school at 7.30 where they are given breakfast . . .cereal and toast . . . and work in school all day. At 3.30 'home time' these same kids plus some others have to wait to be picked up by a bus which takes them to another school which offers 'after school activities' and a snack until maybe 5.30 to 6 in the evening when they are finally taken home by parents or grandparents. This is in a very rough and ready part of the county and makes me wonder at the life-styles of the more middle class parents who work even longer hours. The friend said some of these 4 year olds are so tired they find it difficult to stay awake in class. The link below lets you hear the programme or use it as a podcast . . . something I understand nothing about. ;-) Here is a link that might be useful: Mom's Rising