You folks down in 10 lucked out...I'm in 9, and boy oh boy, did my yard take a hit. It got more freezes than Nicki's yard up in Leesburg. When I say 8 hard freezes in a row, I'm not joking. My birdbaths were frozen solid every single one of those 8 mornings, and a couple of days, it stayed below freezing until well after noon. Hi, Laura! I only have one or two roses left, and they DID come through fine. Another one that survived beautifully is my huge, gigantic fennel plant, which I had already cut back earlier, and which had new 1 and 2 foot tall sprouts on it. I thought since they were new, they would freeze, but nope. It looks wonderful. One of the few spots of bright green left in my yard. Gingers, split leaf philos, etc, all totally black and mushy. I'm thinking a few might come back, but most probably won't. Just too many freezes in a row. Bound to have caused some root damage. Many of you know I'm a 65 year old native of Florida, mostly the central Florida area, and I have never, EVER seen this many hard freezes in a row. Yes, I've seen it just as cold, but only for a night or two at the most, with a warm up, and then maybe another night or two in a few weeks. But 8 hard freezes back to back will pretty much do in anything remotely tropical in nature, I think. I'm just HOPING that 1/3 of what I lost will come back after pruning. The rest will probably have to be replaced, even though many were things I got after last year's freezes that were supposed to be much hardier. *sigh* It makes me want to plant out my whole yard in azaleas and forget about it! *grin* What I'll actually do is make a list of everything that made it, and those will be what I buy more of. The ones that are totally gone won't be on my planting list any more. Hey, Laura...I've heard that coral honeysuckle can suddenly go into an unexplained decline even without cold weather, perhaps caused by a fungus or something? But mine smiled through last year's four-in-a-row freezes and this year's 8, so I'm thinking I need a lot more of it along my fences. Besides which the hummers love it so much. Marcia

Hey, I've got a Bluebird pair nesting in my backyard this year, and they aren't following the "rules" either. One - My back yard could be described at best as an "open woodland" with numerous large canopy trees, plenty of evergreens, shrubbery, and tangled thickets, intermixed with some lawn, gardens, and a couple overgrown meadow/weedy areas. A very mixed habitat. While numerous Bluebirds visit daily during the winter to eat the home-made peanut butter suet, they usually disperse by Spring and I never in a million years expected any to nest here. On the plus side, the next door neighbor has a large lawn he mows and there is a meadow across the street, so they probably hunt there, but I often observe them perching and hunting in my yard too. Two - Even though I rushed to put up a traditional Bluebird nestbox mounted on a pole w/baffle, the Bluebirds have chosen to nest in NATURAL CAVITIES in the dead pine snags in my back yard. They have had 2 broods and chose 2 different natural cavities for each brood, while ignoring the nest box. One cavity was about 20 feet up, one about 10 feet up. Guess they didn't read about safety rules, proper hole size, and predator guards. :) I am very excited because their 2nd brood fledged about a week ago, they disappeared for awhile, and today Mr. and Mrs. Blue showed up to repeatedly retrieve some suet nuggets and fly off to the large Pin Oak in the front yard where I'm guessing the fledglings were hanging out! (Also heard some cries coming from the tree.) Momma Blue peeking out from her first nesting cavity -

This one was on the table at a book club potluck last week. Everyone raved and wanted the recipe. I'm going to cross post in new recipes. Zucchini Pickles - Heidi Swanson, 100 Cookbooks There are quite a number of ways to play around with the personality of these pickles. Sometimes I shave the zucchini paper-thin, resulting in a whispy tangle of pickled zucchini and onions. Other times I want my pickles to have a bit more bite, structure, and definition. In those instances, I slice the zucchini thicker, perhaps 1/8-inch, and let them drain as long as possible, sometimes overnight refrigerated. Also worth noting, when I make them for our personal condiment stash, I used a brown natural cane sugar. It gives the pickle liquid a brownish cast that, quite frankly, weirds people out if they don't know what is causing it. So, if I'm making the pickles to bring to a BBQ or something, I'll make them with regular organic cane sugar - one that is lighter in color.
 3 medium zucchini (1 pound / 16 oz / 450 g), thinly sliced
 1 medium white onion, thinly sliced
 3 shallots, thinly sliced 1 1/2 tablespoons fine grain sea salt 
1/4 cup (small handful) fresh dill sprigs 1 small fresh red chile pepper, very thinly sliced 1/2 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds 3/4 cup / 180 ml cider vinegar
 3/4 cup / 180 ml white wine vinegar
 1/3 cup / 1.75 oz / 50g natural cane sugar 
Toss the zucchini, onion, shallots, and salt together in a colander and place over a bowl to catch the liquids. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least a couple hours. Toss once or twice along the way. You're aiming to get as much liquid out of the zucchini as possible.

When you're finished draining the zucchini, shake off any water. At this point you want the zucchini as dry as possible. Place in a 1 liter / 1 quart jar along with the dill, chile pepper, and mustard seeds. Alternately, you can cram them into a 3/4 liter Weck jar like I do, but it's always a bit snug in the jar. Combine the ciders and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer, stirring until the sugar dissolves, and continue to boil for a few minutes. Pour the liquid over the zucchini and seal the jar. Let cool, then refrigerate. The pickles are good for a week or so. 

Makes one large jar. Prep time: 120 min - Cook time: 5 min Here is a link that might be useful: Quick pickled zucchini

I tried growing them in our sand dune 6 years ago but they didn't do too well. I got 2 plants in large pots about 5 years ago. I believe they were sugarloaf and they were over wintered plants that were being cleared. I left the 2 Sugarloaf in pots, divided and re-potted them until I had a dozen over grown 10gal. pots. This spring I divided them and tossed about half. I currently have 7 pots with 8 fruits. For this variety, and maybe others - a stalk will produce 1 fruit. It also can produce side shoots. Up to 3. The usual recommendation is to remove all but 1 of the side shoots, let it fruit the next year, then pull the plant. This works well for the commercial growers because the plant increases in size, but produces the same amount of fruit. Not economical for them. For us, when the pot gets crowded and the fruit size suffers, we can just divy them up into more pots and go on enjoying even more fruits. The plants are also send up new shoots from the base. I think most of my expansion is from base growth. Plants from culture or tops take longer to fruit, usually 2 years. A divided plant will fruit the first year since it starts out with a decent root system. I would buy the largest plant I could find if I was to start over. Store fruit tops are too iffy and slow. Pineapples seem to be mostly pest free. Vermin eating the fruit happens, but bugs don't like them.They are thrifty with water, and tolerate neglect and being root bound. As for flavor, I harvest my fruits when they are yellow and fragrant. They are sweet and heavenly. I will never buy a store pineapple again.