pdshop-- The dahlia growing is great all the way from Vancouver, BC to beyond the Oregon border- the whole Pacific NW is good dahlia growing territory. There's also a ton of dahlia societies along the corridor, too. Small towns- Ferndale, Lynden, Custer, Blaine, Everson, Nooksack are all around here. Then you get bigger with Bellingham, Mt. Vernon & Snohomish. Then you're getting into Seattle/ Tacoma area- lots of people down there & traffic! On to Vancouver, WA & points south. Grab a map & have a look. I understand that northern Oregon-- Portland area is good, too- Swan Island is down there. The farther south the longer season- just don't go too far south or you'll be getting into the CA hot weather-- though we do have a lot of customers in CA that grow from very early spring all the way to winter-- but the quality of the dahlias is best in the rainy Pacific NW.

Well we get Moose, deer, coyotes, bears, foxes, squirels and a few other critters in the yard every year. We also are on the path of the migrating birds...going south and back north.....they stop in my back yard and clean out the feeders and berries and they are off again. A few stick around like the nuthatches, chickidees, purple finches and some years the white crown sparrows. Oh and the Juncos do a wonderful job keeping the bug populations down in my gardens. Swallows nest on the house across the street every year.....they help with mosquito control. LOL. There are two kinds of hummingbirds that fight over the gardens all summer...those little buggers have a big attitude! We are also visited by 3 kinds of woodpeckers. There are many kinds of butterflys and bees, and the hummingbird moths. And ewwwwwww spiders...lots of spiders...did I say EEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! its more like EEEEEKKKKKKKSSSSSSS!!!! I'm sure there is more just can't think of them all. As far as bear safety.....get educated on the subject...don't take chances. Wear bear bells if you are berry picking or out in the woods. Pick fruit as soon as its ready...don't leave any laying around to draw them in. Make sure garbage is in a bear proof container or in a closed garage. We have a bear aware program here....I check my yard everytime I go out this time of year.....before I start to garden. Sierra

LOL, AM, awesome hotness! Diana, what about roast chicken, the Lemon "up the butt" chicken is nice. or the Rao's Lemon Chicken, great with a side or roasted potatoes (or rice). Sol's Garlic Chicken is great, too! I'd just go with what you normally eat these days and add a couple sides they might like, that you won't get tempted with! Hope your mom feels better! Lemon Chicken (Raos Famous Lemon Chicken - Pollo al Limone) 2 3-pound broiling chickens, halved (I use chicken parts - legs and thighs, but you can also use a chicken cut in eighths, I take the skin off) 1/4 cup chopped Italian Parsley Lemon Sauce: 2 cups fresh lemon juice 1 cup olive oil 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar 1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano salt and pepper to taste To attain maximum heat, preheat broiler for at least 15 minutes before using. Broil chicken halves, turning once, for about 30 minutes or until skin is golden-brown and juices run clear when bird is pierced with a fork. Remove chicken from broiler, leaving broiler on. Using a very sharp knife, cut each half into about 6 pieces (leg, thigh, wing, 3 small breast pieces). Place chicken on a baking sheet with sides, of a size that can fit into the broiler. Pour Lemon Sauce over the chicken and toss to coat well. If necessary, divide sauce in half and do this in two batches. Return to broiler and broil for 3 minutes. Turn each piece and broil for an additional minute. Remove from broiler and portion each chicken onto each of 6 warm serving plates. Pour sauce into a heavy saucepan. Stir in parsley and place over high heat for 1 minute. Pour an equal amount of sauce over each chicken and serve with lots of crusty bread to absorb the sauce. Directions for Lemon Sauce Whisk together juice, oil, vinegar, garlic, oregano, and salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use. Whisk or shake vigorously before using. Notes : You'll need at least 10 lemons to get two cups of fresh juice. Bottled juice will NOT give good results. Keeping the chicken at least 4 inches from the broiler's heat source will cut down on the smoking. MY NOTES I add some chopped shallots to the sauce. Mix it all up in a container. I take the skin off the chicken, then put the chicken pieces in a broiler pan and broil one side, then I drain the pan, turn the pieces over and broil the other side until they're really crispy about thirty minutes or so when its browned and the juices run clear. Then when the chicken is fully cooked, take the top part of the broiler pan off and drain the fat. Put the chicken in the bottom pan and pour the lemon sauce over the chicken pieces and broil it for a few more minutes. Then I pour the whole thing in a big bowl and serve the chicken and the sauce with roasted potatoes, and steamed broccoli. and you are doing so great, girl, here's a brisket that's really easy to make and if you hate pot roast it's perfect, you won't be tempted, but they might like it. It has beer in it but I bet you can sub ginger ale, she can't have wheat. BRISKET 1 4-pound beef brisket Kosher salt Pepper 2 onions, thinly sliced into half moons (I use 3 large onions) 1/2 cup ketchup 1/2 cup prepared chile sauce (Heinz Chile Sauce - I use the whole bottle) 3 tablespoons brown sugar (I use a bit more) 6 cloves garlic, minced 1 12-ounce bottle beer Salt and pepper both sides of the meat. Place beef in a roasting pan. Cover with onion. Combine ketchup, chile sauce, brown sugar, garlic, and beer. Pour mixture over meat. Cover securely with foil. Bake at 300 degrees F for 4 hours or more until tender. Puree half the gravy to thicken it up (Optional) and slice the meat against the grain! Tastes even better the next day. Freezes well! and the leftovers are good!

I don’t use much fertilizer so I can exclude chemical burn. Did you know your plants can suffer from fertilizer burn, the malady, even if you have never fertilized? Solutions with a low concentration of dissolved solids/salts move to an area with a higher concentration of dissolved solids until isotonicity (balance) is reached. You might remember the process of osmosis from biology. Water in the soil solution normally moves into cells through the semi-permeable cell membrane until the level of solutes in bound water (water inside of the cells) is the same as the level of solutes in the soil solution. The technical name for fertilizer burn is plasmolysis, and it occurs when the level of dissolved solids in the soil solution rises to a point higher than the level of solutes in bound water (water inside of cell walls). Under this condition, water no longer moves freely into plants through the root cell membrane; rather, it moves out of cells into the soil solution in the same way that curing salt pulls moisture from ham or bacon. As cells shrink due to dehydration, plasmalemma is torn from cell walls, destroying cells. If you're not flushing the soil with regularity, dissolved solids from tapwater accumulate in the soil until osmosis is severely impaired, at which time the plant starts to exhibit symptoms of drought stress, even if the soil is awash with a sea of plenty. My guess is, you're over-watering. Over-watering = a reduction in the oxygen required for roots to function normally = impaired root function = the plant's inability to move water efficiently = drought stress and accompanying symptoms, which include spoiled foliage as seen in the images you provided. Heat stress might also be in play, as the potential for heat stress increases as respiration decreases. I would A) start using a "tell" to "tell" you when it's time to water (see below), B) flush the soil thoroughly the next time you're sure the plant needs water (see below), and start the plant on a more appropriate fertilizer, like Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 and see how it goes. Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support good root health, which is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to a build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Flushing Soils When you water, you should be able to flush planting's soil to eliminate the potentiality of salts from fertilizers and tapwater accumulating in the soil, thereby limiting the plant's ability to take up water and the nutrients dissolved in the water. If you think you shouldn't flush the soil during your regular water applications for fear the soil will remain saturated for a lengthy period, limiting root function or worse, you should consider a different soil or take steps to reduce the amount of excess water your soil can hold. By whatever means necessary, getting to the point you can water correctly is going to make a very big difference in the opportunity to realize as much of it's genetic potential as possible. Once you can water correctly, you no longer have to do battle with a water-retentive medium over control of your plant's vitality. There are several methods of limiting how much water your planting can hold, all but 1 or 2 are completely passive, requiring no effort on your part other than set-up, which is monkey easy. I can help if you have interest in that, I'm continually improving my proficiency at monkey easy tasks. To flush the soil of a planting: Water with room temperature water until the soil is completely saturated. Allow the planting to rest for 15 minutes to an hour to allow as much of the salt accumulation as possible to go into solution, then pour a volume of room temp water equal to at least 10X the volume of the pot the plant is in slowly through the soil. This will remove most of any accumulation of offending salts and resolve any skewing of nutrient ratios. It's a good idea, no matter what time of year, to fertilize most plants immediately after flushing the soil. Try to be sure you're using a fertilizer that has a ratio as close as possible to the ratio at which the plant uses nutrients. The NPK % listed on fertilizer packaging is not its ratio. 7-7-7 and 14-14-14 are 1:1:1 ratios. 9-3-6, 12-4-8, and 24-8-16, are all 3:1:3 ratios. Container growers should try very hard to avoid use of fertilizers advertised as 'bloom-boosters', or any number with a middle number (Phosphorous) higher than either the first or third numbers (Nitrogen or Potassium). These fertilizers can badly skew nutrient ratios with even the first application). On average, plants use about 6x as much N as P, so there is NO potential for a positive outcome when supplying many times as much P as the plant requires. I, and a large number of other members, use Dyna-Gro's Foliage Pro 9-3-6. It's designed to closely mimic the uptake ratio of the average plant, and has many other attributes not commonly found in other fertilizers. It also has ALL of the nutrients essential to normal growth. Summarized, it makes fertilizing as easy as it can be, and from 1 container. BTW - when you water, are you allowing the plant to sit in the effluent that would normally exit the pot if it had a drain hole? and, Does your home have an ionic exchange water softener (the kind you have to regularly recharge with salt? Al