About four or five years ago, when I began actively feeding birds suet, I had a lot of Juncos. I try to add scraps to a tray that sits on my central air unit, and that's where they'd typically eat, but they'd also venture to my hanging suet. I also read that they love fritos, so perhaps adding crushed fritos to my suet attracted them as well. I don't use black sunflower seeds because the hulls contain a toxin that inhibits plant growth - and I'm an avid gardener / landscaper. In addition to suet I also provide nyger seed, safflower seed and wild mix bird seed. Ever since I added millet to my suet the wrens stuck around and refuse to leave. Huge mistake. At the same time I've added more evergreen trees & shrubs to my landscape, and they love the shelter it provides near my feeders. Especially considering we have chicken hawks (coopers hawks) in the area, so I try to keep my feeders near brush or trees.

the sparrows don't show up here but when its stormy and usually after daylight. the juncos are often here before it get light even and stay off and on all day till dark. the sparrows show up in flocks fly in and eat in a hury and are gone and might not be back for days. Only one scraggly ground squirrel here and he seldom climbs anything and stays on the ground mostly and has a tunnel under a shrub in a neighbors yard. Have not seen him since it started snowing. the juncos favor the cracked corn and millet and the sparrows the millet and milo.

It may grow past the damage. Or it may not. I personally would eat the fruit they produce--others may have a different opinion--but the badly damaged ones may not produce fruit or only produce a small amount, and it may be stunted. The brown spot on the tomato in the first picture looks like damage from rubbing against the cage. Such damage is no big deal unless a mold or something takes the opportunity to start rotting the fruit or it attracts the attention of a pest. EDIT: For future, maybe you can put your plants somewhere else on your property. If not, maybe you can talk to your neighbor and come to some kind of agreement or you can offer to pull his weeds by hand/hire a neighborhood kid to pull his weeds by hand or something, depending on what problem he's trying to solve.

Those folks are just being lazy. Here is what you asked for. Watering Deep and infrequent is the mantra for watering. Deep means 1 inch all at one time. Measure that by placing cat food or tuna cans around the yard and turn on the sprinkler(s). Time how long it takes to fill all the cans. That time will become your watering time from now on. Mine is 8 hours with my hose, water pressure, and oscillator sprinkler. Yours will be different. Frequency depends mostly on the daily high temperature. With temps below 70, deep water once a month. With temps in the 70s, water once every 3 weeks. With temps in the 80s deep water once every 2 weeks. With temps in the 90s deep water once a week. Other factors bearing on watering include sun/shade, cloudiness, wind, soil type, and humidity. Start with the frequencies mentioned and adjust by a day or two in either direction depending on conditions. If it rains, reset your calendar. Honestly last year in my part of Texas we had rain timed perfectly so I did not have to water until July. This year we started a month ago. Deep and infrequent also helps keep weeds away, because weed seeds need shallow and frequent watering...like daily watering, to germinate. Mowing Mulch mow most grasses at the mower's highest setting once a week. This gives the most dense grass and provides the most shade to the soil surface. This helps prevent weed germination and slows down evaporation. The exceptions to mowing high include bermuda, centipede, and creeping bentgrass, which should be mowed low. Fertilizer First app of the year in the north is late May (Memorial Day). Second app is in late summer (Labor Day). Third app is in late November after the grass goes completely dormant and stops growing. This is the winterizer application to prepare the lawn for spring awakening. This application is why you don't need to fertilize in early spring. Use a dry product to apply pounds of fertilizer. Liquid fertilizers apply micro ounces of fertilizer and must be repeated every week or two. The above are in order of importance and are the condensed wisdom of the Internet forums over 20 years: Watering, mowing, and fertilizing in decreasing order of importance. These following are special topics that everyone should be aware of. Insecticide If you have lawn damage and discover that a certain insect is to blame, THEN you can apply an insecticide. Otherwise do NOT apply preventive insecticide in anticipation of the problem before it affects your grass. There are millions of insects in the soil and lawn which are important to keeping the lawn healthy. Spraying insecticide willy nilly is a really bad idea. Fungicide Pretty much the same problem as with insecticide. There are billions of beneficial fungi living in the soil. Don't kill them for no reason. If you water as above you will likely not have a fungal problem. Sometimes Mother Nature does not cooperate and disease can happen. Also, mushrooms are not a problem. They may be unsightly, but they are not a problem that a 9-iron can't fix. They will pop up in a healthy lawn if it gets too wet (ahem, Mother Nature). Dethatching and Core Aerating If you water and fertilize as outlined above, you should not need to dethatch. Whereas if you water every day and use spray fertilizer, then the grass will 'learn' that it doesn't need deep roots to survive, and it will tend to grow at or above the surface. Thatch happens. As for core aerating, it is extremely unlikely you have compaction issues unless you have the marching band practice on your lawn right after a rain storm. If your soil is harder than you want it to be, try spraying any clear shampoo, like Baby Shampoo, at 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Follow it up with 1/2 to 1 inch of irrigation or rain. Give that 3 weeks and the soil will become much softer. Before you get too skeptical, keep in mind that this costs you 50 cents to try. It is not worth your time arguing about it. If it doesn't work for you, you would be in the minority, and it only cost you 50 cents. YouTube videos. I mean WTF? These guys must be paid by the fertilizer and -icide industry to shill products. Seriously lawn care is not rocket surgery. I have thought about writing a book on lawn care, but the more I think about it, the more the book turns into a 3-fold pamphlet. There is not much more to say than what I've said. How can these guys keep finding stuff to post to YouTube???