Awesome pics Herman! I think letting them sit until they droop is a good idea. I wish someone had told me sooner about LSU figs trees. I got one LSU Purple and on LSU Gold from Burnt Farms in May. Both were 3 foot tall. They came as bare root. I soaked the roots in water, then potted them in a 10 gallon pot. Today compared to Swowden and Areano they are my fastest growing trees! The tips started to yellow and curve due to our long hot days in the Carolinas. We've had lots of rain in the past 2 months but our temperature stay in the 90s till September. Now my LSUs are 4 foot tall with figs! I had to repot them yesterday. The roots were very white and no disease but very dry in the center of the root ball. I created a better soil mixture this timed and planted them into a huge plastic tub from Lowe's. This morning I check on them and they are doing fine. My Atreano produced 2 huge golf ball size figs yesterday. I ate them before I could find my camera. They were very sweet...sweeter than my Kadota this year which had 10 huge figs clustered in the center about a month ago. I don't have to worry about birds in my area. I got 2 huge hawks that patrol my back yard. Since I built my green house last month. I'm going to fertilize all my trees again next weekend and plop them in the greenhouse over the winter. Say Herman, do you have any Stella fig trees? I've got one and it is growing so slow! It has one fig on it the size of a pecan the tree is 3 years old! I may repot it and see if that will helps. Any recommendations? Dennis

Sheri, Something tells me it is going to be a bad grasshopper year, at least for those of us in rural to semi-rural areas. Maybe it is because I started seeing full-sized grasshoppers back in January or February (way too early!). I apply Nolo Bait by putting on a pair of latex medical-type gloves and scattering it by hand on the plants inside the veggie garden. When I have to put it in the pasture, which I haven't had to do in several years, I mow the pasture first (not required, but I think it makes it easier for the hoppers to find the Nolo Bait) and then also scatter it by hand. I don't strive for perfectly even coverage in the pasture, because as mobile as grasshoppers are, I feel like they will find it. I met some people west of Fort Worth once who lived in Parker County who told me they have so many hoppers in their pastures that they buy the Nolo Bait in 50-lb. bags (imagine the expense!) and I wonder how they spread it--surely not by hand? If your pasture area is large, and you don't want to go to the expense of trying to cover all the pastures, just spread the Nolo in a band 10 to 20' all along your fence lines. I always have tons more hoppers out in the fields, and the guineas take care of them. So far, the guineas have never let me down. One guinea can eat 2 lbs. of grasshoppers a day, so even a small flock of guineas can make quite a dent in the grasshopper population. My guineas eat all morning until they are either tired or full, then lay down in the shade of the big pecan tree in the front yard and "rest" until early evening. At about 5 p.m., they get their second wind and go through the whole yard and pasture area a second time, eating their "dinner". In a really, really bad year, though, as the grasshoppers migrate from farm to farm and field to field, even the guineas can't really keep up. In years like that, I use a lot of jars of molasses water near my plantings (as traps) and I use a chemical bait called EcoBran in my pastures. I've linked the bait below. You know I don't like to use chemicals, but sometimes you have to, and EcoBran is designed to be less toxic to wild critters OTHER THAN hoppers. Nolo Bait is GREAT in general, but it works best on grasshoppers in the smallest instars (when the hoppers are roughly 1/4" to 1/2" or maybe 3/4" long). For the bigger hoppers that migrate in from elsewhere full-grown, some DO die from ingesting Nolo Bait either directly or by cannabilizing hoppers who died after eating Nolo. Others don't, though, hence the need for a chemical bait. In our worst grasshopper year since we moved here, the hoppers were chewing on our fiberglass window screens, cotton throw rugs on the porch, lawn furniture cushions, tree bark.....etc. They even ate the peaches on the trees, leaving only the pits hanging there. If we ever have that kind of year again (and this year might be it, you never know), I will spray my veggies with kaolin clay (sold as surround). It makes the garden and your plants look dusty and dirty, but it works. On the linked page, the Ecobran link is at the bottom of the grasshoppper page. I hate grasshoppers! Dawn

i am convienced i need new seed for AGG. **** Tom, you've got my e-mail address. Just send me your home address, b'c it would take me too long to find it again, and I'll be glad to send you some AGG seeds. I think they're probably 2003 or 04 but germination has stayed good. Not a general offer folks. Sorry. AGG has been one of my faves since Chuck sent me the seeds lo those many years ago. It's always one of the latest for me and has always loaded up wonderfully. I remember one year in the past where I had two plants and picked a half bushel off each plant at one time. And don't anyone ever tell me that yellow/gold tomatoes are bland until and unless you've grown AGG. LOL It was a lucky find for Chuck and in the back of his mind he always wondered if it was an OP derivative of a hybrid. He got the seeds from a friend in VA and apparently his friend knew nothing more about them. But speaking for myself I don't know of any other yellow/gold that has that taste. Which of course is a somewhat meaningless statement since I'd have to have grown all the large yellow/gold PL beefsteak varieties known and that's an impossibility. LOL Carolyn

Thanks Instar, but it's too late for me now! (Still awaiting delivery, though.) Eva Purple Ball: I grew that this year, Carolyn. I really did not like it. It was small and a little bit sweet, I thought, sort of like the small red on-the-vine things they sell at the supermarket. I can testify that my neighbor (the same one mentioned previously) liked them. I gave them all to her. It was also the first of my plants to succumb to blight. It spread out from there and took out everything to left and right. I'll blame myself for that -- overwatering on a clay substrate. And not enough medicine. (I've learned my lesson: Mancozeb+Daconil+Spinosad. And poke the ground.) Googling for Pink Sweet and Sandul... they both sound very interesting! Pink Sweet is only at Tomatofest that I can see, but with a name like that, googling is difficult. Sandul is much easier to find: Tanager's and Amishland for just two. I have Sudduth Brandywine seeds from Victory in a drawer somewhere, here. It may take some rooting around. Reg: I hadn't really planned on growing Kellogg's this year except in an emergency. I just bought that to pad the order out, heh. It gets so much good buzz on the forum, I thought it would be good to have it on hand. Speaking of seeds... I have been beating myself up for not planting any lettuce this fall. I am a big rabbit-food junkie. It turns out, as I just now found out, that I have a virtual LAWN of lettuce volunteers growing in a corner plot that I let bolt over the Fall! I'm not sure, but I suspect it's Nevada, maybe Vulcan. The only reason I never bothered to bag and save the seed was because I WASN'T sure what type it was.