I have several suggestions. First, be sure you're using a fertilizer designed for tomatoes or any fertilizer that is low in nitrogen content (the first of the three numbers on the fertilizer package). With too much nitrogen you'll get big, beautiful plants and few/no tomatoes. Do an internet search for "prune tomatoes" and follow several of the leads. You'll find helpful videos and articles about how to maintain your plants so that most of the nutrients go into tomatoes, not unwanted growth. Using just one stake to support a tomato plant is difficult. The lateral branches will get heavy when the tomatoes develop, so you'll get better support more easily with a wire cage or a trellis of some sort. You can use two or three stakes with a string framework, as long as they are far enough apart to give the plant room to grow out. Then use thick string, strips of panty hose (my favorite), or nursery tape to attach the branches LOOSELY to the trellis. Be careful not to tie them tight enough to cut off the flow of nutrients. I'm sure others will have more ideas. Hope you get lots of good tomatoes. Enjoy them! Here is a link that might be useful: Pruning tomatoes

Zone 4a and this will be my fifth year doing this. I start around new years, typically with hardy perennials in my zone, shurbs/trees and seeds that i don't really care about (e.g. old seeds). I typically wait until late February to start putting out a lot of my annuals, and I leave the following til the end of march or early april: zinnias sunflowers ornamental millet abutilon dolichos lablab morning glories 4 o'clocks cosmos and pretty much anyhting tropical in origin Most of these will sprout if sown earlier, but their foliage is sufficiently tender that I lose them in the cold nights we have earlier in the winter/spring. If I wait til then, they typically don't pop til mid april or later and i typically don't have to worry about the seedlings freezing then.

I took a lot of tips from Tdogmom in preparing for my talks. There were lots of good tips in the thread you read. As I am not actually teaching, my talks are shorter--30-45 minutes to garden groups. My talks in schools take at least an hour. I speak directly to students and bring lots of realia. I call my livestock my "butterfly zoo." So I'm Mrs. S- and her Butterfly Zoo. Kids love it. I have developed a powerpoint--simple--to show photos and keep me on track. I keep my talk to the basics, stressing how BFs are beneficial and a gauge of how healthy our environment is. My handout lists 10 host and 10 nectar plants that are best for our area, plus websites including TDogmom's blogs, Monarch Watch, Journey North, and the GardenWeb. I have photos on the powerpoint of each of the plants I talk about. A lot of these photos show BFs on the plants. I cover the BFs most likely to be encountered in our area. I do life cycles on these BFs so that people can recognize any one of the cycles they might find. I always bring potted plants to show. As Sherry mentioned, the concept of host plants can be hard for some people to grasp. They think that BFs lay eggs on any plant and don't realize the specific needs of each species. I spend quite a bit of time explaining this. I don't spend a lot ot time on container raising as most people are not interested in this. If I was presenting for teachers, this topic would be very important. I may be doing a workshop on this topic this fall, as I've let it be known I wouldn't be providing caterpillars to anyone that hasn't been trained to take care of them properly. When talking to kids, they want to know how to raise BFs. So gear your talk to your audience. I have 3 photo albums that I take with me. One shows the building of my garden and the plants. One shows pictures of the different species that have appeared in my garden, and the third is a life cycle album of the BFs I've raised. I also take my camera as people are interested in what I used to take the photos. I bring field guides, The Lifecycles of Butterflies book, and Wagner's Caterpillars of Eastern NA. And, finally, I have run off the pamphlet from Monarch Watch on becoming a Monarch Waystation. I think it's great you have the opportunity to speak. I find it very enjoyable and rewarding. I've gotten lots of wonderful feedback. I include my BF email address on yahoo so if people have a question, they can contact me. I have a return engagement with one of the garden clubs for next April. They've called me and want to come see my gardens. HTH, Sandy

It's a little warmer here than in Boston, but not by much, so I think you should have similar results with lavender (one of my favorite plants). My happiest and most long-lived lavenders are in areas that are slightly raised above the surrounding soil - it really likes to be dry in winter but likes average water levels during the growing season. My favorite cultivar is 'Grosso' - here's what High Country Gardens says about it: This long-stemmed beauty has the darkest blue-purple flower spikes of any of the French hybrid types. It is also the most cold hardy French hybrid lavender cultivar. A heavy bloomer, the flowers have a strong lavender fragrance with a hint of camphor. The calyxes cling tightly to the flowering stems when dried, making ÂGrosso an excellent choice as an everlasting flower or for use in lavender crafts. Zones 5-10. 30" x 24-30" wide. If you deadhead fanatically, you can get a second flush of blooms on some varieties. I've only had Grosso (identified!) for a couple of years, so I don't know if that will work on this cultivar. Lady is very easy from seed, and can be grown as an annual, as it flowers the first year. Lavender really hates to be crowded - most of my garden is underplanted with common thyme and other assorted creepers, which I have to constantly hack back from the lavenders. If the lavs don't have enough space, they get a lot of die-back of the leaves along the lower branches - very unsightly. The pros will tell you to replace your plants every few years because they get woody and awkward. I happen to like that look so I usually just leave mine in place. They also can be propagated by softwood cuttings, but I haven't tried that yet.