Dorothy, You're welcome. I'm always happy to spread the word about Eliot Coleman's books and, also, about his wife's books. And that reminds me, Barbara Damrosch's wonderful book, "The Garden Primer", was updated and re-released in 2008 and I need to get a copy of it. It has been many years since I originally read her books but I remember that I enjoyed The Garden Primer and her Theme Gardens book immensely. Wait until you see his greenhouses (giant hoophouses really) on movable skids. They are amazing. It sounds like the cold finally reached y'all. I'd try harder to do some winter gardening, but I don't like cold weather. I finally lost the rest of my castor bean plants this week when the temperatures dropped into the low 20s. They had been killed back bit by bit with each successive frost. Having attained heights ranging from 8 to about 12 or 14' in height, they were gorgeous. They froze from the top down, but I left the ugly frozen leaves on them (although some eventually dropped on their own) because those leaves protected the still healthy leaves beneath them. I noticed Friday, though, that every one of them is now totally frozen out. In the garden, though, I still have lemon balm, sage, mint, rosemary, oregano, sweet alyssum, a few Laura Bush petunias in both pink and purple, and dianthus. Everything else is done. Every meal I've prepared this week has incorporated several items raised in the garden...that's how I keep my garden "alive" all winter long....by eating from it. I suppose we need the winter down time to rest and recover from a long garden season. Even as I lament the freezing weather and the end of the garden, I'm also looking at the 2010 calendar and starting to plot out my planting dates. LOL I do still have several pepper plants in pots that are producing peppers. I drag them into the garage at night (aling with the brugs) and back out during the day. It isn't exactly like we need more peppers....as y'all know, we harvested about 4 times our usual amount this summer. I think I keep the peppers alive as long as possible just so something is still green and producing....because I really miss the 'green' in the winter when most the landscape is brown or tawny gold. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: The Garden Primer, Second Edition

HTown, don't be too comfortable with them. I've been feeding the ones in our yard off and on for awhile, but I never get too close to them. No matter how "familiar" you may be with them, they still have an instinctive distrust for people and they have the potential to be dangerous. Most people don't like them because they've had bad experiences with them, just like many other types of wildlife that invade or wreak some form of destruction on their property, and that's completely understandable. They can also be aggressive towards pets. I made a point of mentioning to my neighbors that there were raccoons active in our area. If you get to feeding them and slack off, they could move on to another property where they're not as welcome and that could have negative consequences for the neighbor, the raccoon or both. I'm not saying don't feed or enjoy them, but make sure you educate yourself on them before you get into it on a regular or semi-regular basis. Make sure there are no means for them to access your house including the roof and chimney, because once they know where the food is coming from they could try to find an easier way to get to it. It's best not to leave food for them near your house for this reason. One of the first things I did when I knew how much they came around was make sure they couldn't get on our roof from any trees, the area around our deck was sealed, and our chimney cap was secure. I added chicken(Actually smaller gapped fencing than chicken wire) wire around the opening to ensure there was no access.(Something I was going to do anyway to deter the birds that ended up in our living room.) This link I found can cover it a little more indepth. These are just tips, but they can be helpful. Feeding Tips I guess my message is it's fine to enjoy them, but make sure you know what you're getting yourself in for, as there are a few things to consider. :-)

best story? parents lived in Hollywood apt with a small balcony...neighbors around the other side of the apt building put out whole peanuts.(in shell) the enterprising jay would fly around to my parents and bury the nuts in a planter they had...my father loved to leave the slider open as well as the screen...3 stories up you don't worry...well that was the day the jay started to check out the apt and scared my mom who had just gotten out of the shower and only in a towel when they met!! don't know who was more scared! needless to say that was the last time the screen was left open... bet our late staying jays and robins are gone today, lol...had a dusting of snow in metro Detroit earlier...

I've typed and submitted the Week 4 thread twice today and when I hit submit it just disappears into outer space. I wonder where it goes? So, I'm going to try again, with only the word test, rather than typing everything and losing it again. I think I'll change the Subject line too in case the system is having a hard time telling week 3 from week 4. Rebecca, In Texas in zone 8, we only could grow tulips as annuals, though I sometimes had them come back for a couple of years. I planted them here anyway when we moved here, hoping that being further a little bit further north would help them live longer. It really didn't, although they came back every year--sort of. The second year most came back, and then less of them in the 3rd and succeeding years until there were none left at all. I love tulips, but don't bother with them any more. The warming climate worries me too for the sake of earth and all its flora and fauna. I had big plans for working outdoors today, but the wind has been gusting more than 10 mph higher than it was forecast to gust, and the things I want to do are not something that can be done easily with wind gusts at 40+ mph, so I ditched those plans. Tim's flu has relapsed and he is upstairs sick in bed with aches, pains and a very sore throat. (I told him he went back to work too quickly after only staying home for two days last week, and now he agrees with me.) Wow, we had great plans for this day in the bright, sunny early morning hour just after sunrise when it was fairly calm, mostly clear and 61 degrees. Then the clouds and wind rolled in and everything just fell apart. Today's weather now looks better on paper than it feels in real life, if that makes sense. Nancy, Think of what you and I could do if we didn't have all those pesky deer! And, for Rebecca, it may be the same---only with the squirrels. If they come back this year, I imagine the war is on, though I am not sure how you can war with squirrels within a proper city---out here in the sticks, people just shoot them if they must. Dawn