I absolutely enjoy going to these events and have been faithfully going for many years now. I find it truely awesome to find 'gardens' magically appearing several stories beneath street level, and in the middle of winter. What a scene. Tall trees, pools and waterfalls. The displays are meant to be trend setting and thought provoking. In reality some blooms that are used wouldn't naturally come out at the same time. So seasons are suspended. Imaginations are encouraged. I guess the designs may not be to everyone's tastes. And unfortunately the show does tend to get very crowded given the limited space. Plus we could do without the very expensive and mediocre food. I wish we could be a CHELSEA garden but that's outdoors and that woulnd't be possible in Toronto. Yes in some years, the displays have been disappointing - and I have to admit that last year, some show backers weren't there and I felt they were essential to the show. Sometimes the displays are rather repetitive - several showing the same trellis etc.. - all that. Perhaps given the limited space the organizers can be more demanding on display originality. Anyway, I feel that the more participation from garden centres, the more interesting it is for people like me. New plants are introduced, new ideas on gardening, new products. The displays are not the only ones I look for but it's really the market place I enjoy greatly. Ianna

For more information go to their website at www.2005wtg.london.ca, please. Sorry - I don't know how to make the address a link. ole joyful

So, fire pagers went off for a horrific wreck on the interstaten a few minutes ago, and my heart breaks for the families of those involved. I expect Tim will be out there for a few hours. Since we don't take Fire Rehab drinks/food to wrecks on the interstate....but I'm wide awake after Tim got up and left for the fire station.....I figured I might as well be here. Maybe now, in the quiet house in the very early morning hours, I can catch up. My dream would be to do so and then to fall back asleep, but falling back asleep is not something I'm good at doing. Jennifer, Thanks, and I was sleeping well until suddenly I wasn't. Still I actually do feel rested. Don't worry about the potatoes going in a tad late. You're doing fine. We can be so hard on ourselves when sometimes we ought to just celebrate the fact that we're managing to get the garden planted. Congrats on getting all your cool-season greens and brassicas in the ground. I planted some of mine last week, but have a lot more to do this week before I can claim victory and say I'm done. I 'think' the ground finally will be dry enough to plant them Monday or Tuesday, but only if we don't get a lot of rain today/tonight (and we shouldn't). I used a trowel to turn over the soil at first, and then a shovel to get deeper soil flipped over to the surface so the excessively wet mud can dry out some. Since we had a few very windy very warm days, that soil has dried out a lot the last 3 or 4 days. It is about time. Now, just watch for anything that wants to dine on your fresh green plants. Wild birds often attack my young lettuce seedlings with a vengeance, and in rainy springs, the pill bugs and sow bugs prowling the mulched beds require the use of Sluggo or Sluggo Plus to keep those little crustaceans from eating the brassicas and greens. Sowing definitely is a word....... Artichokes are gorgeous plants and each one is like a piece of sculpture in the garden. When I grow them, I like to put them in the northwestern corner of my garden where they are in morning sun until noon or 1 pm and then in dappled shade the rest of the day. They take up a huge amount of space, so plant accordingly. Since we have such a long growing season, I prefer to space most artichoke varieties 4-5' apart. Does yours have a variety name or was it just labeled generically as an artichoke? Rebecca, I do really like David's Garden Seeds. I always try to support small businesses in our region because regional seed suppliers have become so rare and we're lucky when we find one who carries the right varieties for our part of the country. I believe David's now has a brick-and-mortar store in San Antonio too. You did get a lot done! That's terrific. I'm just like your mom with spinach. I like it so much that no matter how much I plant and grow, it never is enough. Amy, Congrats on the front door opening and everything! : ) I can relate to not being able to take DH into a grocery store. Yesterday we stopped in at Central Market to get 2 things--Dr. Bronner's lavender soap and some fresh fruit for Lillie. I really just wanted her to see their amazing produce session (which did impress her with its huge variety, though she pronounced some fruit, like the Sumo oranges, too ugly to buy and eat). So, I was aiming for a quick walk-through. It didn't really happen. Our cart wasn't quite full (we had one of the small mini carts) but we bought a lot that wasn't on my mental list when we went into the store. Our downfall was the bakery area, which impressed Lillie even more than the produce section. Somehow we left the store with Lemon Ricotta cookies (blame that one on me), a loaf of sourdough bread, a cherry pie (Tim) and a Maine wild blueberry pie (Lillie). We consulted one another and decided that as long as they baked goods contained fruit, we were 'eating healthy', (grin) This always happens. If I run into a store alone with a list, I usually can come out with only what's on the list. I hoard cardboard too and everyone in this family, except the cats, know to leave my cardboard stash alone. Chris, being a great gardening enabler, often saves up his cardboard and brings it to me. I might be the only mom in American who is thrilled when her son brings her empty cardboard boxes. Rebecca, My back doesn't like 50-lb bags of anything. It really doesn't even tolerate 40-lb bags well any more. I've been hauling a lot of wheelbarrow loads of compost and mulch lately and my body really feels it. At this time of the year, I just cannot find a way around doing things that makes my body hurt, and know that I am not alone in this. I don't know what you can do to keep squirrels away. I don't remember if you tried sprinkling red cayenne pepper on the soil in your containers to keep them from digging in the soil last year. If not, that is worth a try. Did you try spraying your fruiting plants with Hot Pepper Wax? I would hope that would deter the squirrels but am not sure if it will. A smallish yappy dog like a rat terrier can help some people keep their garden free of small animals like squirrels and rats (and aren't squirrels really just rats with big fluffy tails?). However, with your Teenage Mutant Ninja Squirrels, I'm a bit worried they'd terrorize a smallish dog and possibly take it hostage and carry it away. For extra nitrogen, have you considered blood meal? It might attract buzzards (it does here) but it is a nice high-nitrogen organic product. For something with a significantly higher N amount, you'd have to get one of the pelleted, slow-release lawn fertilizers that is nitrogen only. Eileen, Collards are an old-fashioned southern staple that's certainly having their moment lately on cooking shows. I grow a lot of them some years, and less in other years. This year I have a lot. Jennifer, Ever since I saw that news story on the light ballast fire, I turn off our grow lights when we leave the house. It probably slows down the growth of the seedlings, but I don't care. It gives me peace of mind. Honestly, I don't think ballast fires are that common, but they do occasionally happen. Jacob, I hope you're having a nice visit with your grandparents. Our neighborhood was so very quiet when we moved here....still had a dirt road, not many neighbors, and a bridge north of us was being taken out and rebuilt so we had very little traffic for a couple of years. So, flash forward almost 20 years and now we have a barely-paved road (basically loads of gravel and tar poured on top of dirt road), a perfect bridge, a few more neighbors and tons, tons and tons of more traffic than I ever thought we'd have here on our roadway. We tried to move far enough out into the boondocks that growth wouldn't catch up with us, but it has. We aren't moving again. At least all our closest neighbors live on acreage, so new folks who move in still aren't too close to any of us. I'm not opposed to people, per se, but just prefer a quieter lifestyle. Livestock (cows, horses, goats, chickens, etc.) still drastically outnumber the people here, but there's a lot more human beings around here than there used to be. I'll try to ID the weeds on a separate post. This one is getting long and I don't want for it to suddenly disappear mysteriously, which sometimes happens on my computer. I don't know if it is the computer or GW, but I'd hate to lose this and have to start all over. Dawn

Annie, I am in total agreement - you are the winner of Bingo! Our other winners are: Margo for the Father's Day Word Scramble Game and Erica has just been selected from a random drawing from all the names of those who participated in the Famous People in the World of Plants. (Those who participated got a number assigned for each time they listed information about someone for us.) Thanks for a fun and informative month. I have the prizes ready and will try to get them mailed tomorrow. I'm hoping they might make it to you before the July 4th holiday. We'll see... Jeanne