Pam. I am not technically oriented so at first all of John Jeavons many pages of lists, charts and diagrams made my head swim and my eyes glaze over. I really let that stuff intimidate me for the longest time. In the meantime, I tried Square Foot Gardening and, while it works reasonably well, some of the spacing---especially for plants like tomatoes and squash that become huge monsters in hot climates--just just didn't give me the results I wanted. So, I went back to "How To Grow More Vegetables...." and tried to incorporate more of that spacing. What I do now is a hybrid of the two, and I do it because it works. Some years I use the spacing from John Jeavons' book almost exclusively, and other years I use some square foot spacing, especially when I am in a hurry because square grid spacing is easier at a time like that. I try to make my grow lists beginning in August while everything is fresh on my mind. I know that by December, I might not remember if it was Yellow Submarine we liked or Medovaya Kaplya or both or neither, so it is best to make next year's planting decisions while everything is more fresh in my mind. This year I have the greenhouse, so I won't necessarily have to drag container plants into the garage as I have in the past. Maybe I can just keep them in the greenhouse with a small heater. Time will tell. We routinely have tomatoes until Thanksgiving or Christmas depending on the weather, and I'm talking about from in-ground plants. Picked at the breaker stage, they ripen slowly and we can eat them from a long time. I extend the season even more with the container plants. Some years I plant the long-keeper types like Longkeeper, Reverend Morrow's Longkeeper, Red October, etc. and they will last a couple of months after being picked if you pick them just before the breaker stage or at the breaker stage. I put them on shelves in our tornado shelter. Golden Jubilee is not, technically, a long-keeper, but it works well when used as one. Busy1, You're there! I know you've been too busy to be online much. I suppose it still is too hot and too dry there to plan on a fall garden? The Keetch-Byram Drought Index numbers for your part of the state are getting scary high. Carol, Likely in these temperatures the row cover is reducing enough light to prevent wilting, but in the spring, if I leave the heavyweight frost blanket on plants on a hot day after a cold night, they do not look happy when I finally uncover them. I use floating row covers a lot in the cool season, but it is hard to make them behave in the wind. I also have cat issues. If I put a row cover over hoops, the cat think it is cat furniture, climb onto it and rip it or tear it. If I put it on plants without hoops so it is free-floating, they think it is a cat blanket and lay on top of it and the plants. To keep the cats out of the garden, I'd have to remove the cedar entry arbor because even when I close the gate, they climb over the arbor to go inside. I don't know how to solve the kitty cat issues with row cover, because they are stubborn. If I yell at them to get off the fabric, they do. However, the minute I turn my attention elsewhere, they're back on it again. Since I'm not out in the garden every minute of the day, the cats do as they please when I'm not there. Thus, for cat reasons, floating row cover works great for me on cold nights when the kitties are in the house but not so great during the day. I have similar issues with shade cloth, but the worst issue with it is that snakes like to lie on top of the shade cloth and sun themselves. I suppose they consider it a bonus that they can scare me to death when I see them there on the shade cloth, often inches from my face. The best solution would be to take out the arbor and replace it with fencing with a standard gate that would keep the cats out, but I love the arbor and the 'Pink Lemonade' honeysuckle that grows on it, so I'd rather not take it out. Anyway, the garden needs the cats or it likely would become overrun with field mice and voles. I just wish I could convince the cats that floating row cover is not meant for their comfort. Dawn

Someone will jump all over me if I'm wrong - and rightfully so. I don't think it's any different in Canada than in the US. Your cost basis is the price per full share as your brokerage only reinvests full shares. If the dividend amount doesn't buy full shares, the overage/shortage goes to money market or cash and does not figure into the stock purchase or the cost basis for any shares purchased. I have one stock where the dividends are routinely reinvested - and I get partial shares, no matter how small the portion of the share. Therefore, it is incumbent on saving your brokerage statements which will indicate your cost basis for each share purchased - the money market or cash portion of your account will capture the part of the dividend reinvestment that was insufficient to buy full shares. In a word, you don't have to do any recalculating of the cost basis. If part of your dividend is not actually applied to buying stock, it doesn't factor into any cost basis for that stock.

For investments that are taxable (in other words, not tax deferred like IRAs) you need to make sure that you keep proof of the "cost basis", so that, when you sell, you can accurately calculate and prove the capital gain or loss to the IRS's statisfaction. Every brokerage firm's statement is different. Some are nice enough to record in each statement what the cost basis is (It changes if dividends are reinvested). But some statements are less user friendly, which means you need to keep them all in case the IRS wants to see proof of how you calculated the gain or loss when you sell. I do not see the need to keep utility bills. You might want to keep credit card statements for a year or two in case you need them to prove an expense. If you can spare the space, save all your tax returns. There is one aspect of the tax returns that many people overlook: If you are fortunate enough to earn enough money so that you do not qualify to deduct your annual IRA contributions, it is important to keep track of the TAXED contributions that you make. The reason: when you reach age 70 1/2 years and you start taking Minimum Required Distributions, you have to pay taxes on those distributions, but when you calculate the amount that's taxable, you should deduct those IRA contributions that you made over the years that were not tax deductible. After all, you don't want to be taxed twice. You need to keep track of these taxed IRA contributions using IRS form 8606. If you haven't done so yet, you should start. Monthly checking account bank statements are useful for calculating your cash flow -- how much you spend, on what you spend it, and how much you earn. Do this analysis once a year is useful because it gives you a good snapshot of what you do with your money. But most canceled checks and bank statements don't need to be kept after a year or two. Just keep the canceled checks that document your income tax deductions in case you're audited. Be careful with records that you discard. You do not want to give out your social security number or account numbers to anyone who might steal your identity. Get a good paper shredder -- one that shreds paper into confetti, not just long narrow strips, because paper shredded with those can be easily reconstructed.

A fine group of quotes. Ariosto fits right in with the ore contemporary quoters, things have not changed a lot. Claude Pepper is wrong about green bananas - I still buy the metaphorical green bananas, mine are books by authors who aroused my curiosity and I must read something of their work and books by authors I love and I still have not read all their work. Too many books, too little time, one does the best one can