Check the base of the plant and see if there's what looks like sawdust. If so - it's a squash vine borer. The plant can be saved - depending upon how much they have eaten. I had that problem with some pumpkins i grew a couple of years ago. They hatch in the dirt and eat their way into the stem - about an inch above the soil line. They proceed to eat their way up inside the stem - basically hollowing it out. **WARNING*** This is a gross - but necessary! You'll have to take a sharp knife or razor blade and cut the stem lengthwise. You'll spot them inside the hollow stem. Take a pair of tweezers, grab the little buggers and pull them out. They are little white wormy things with a brown head. About an inch long. Keep on cutting & pulling until you've got them all. I pulled four out of one plant and three out of another. You can stop cutting when you've reached a point where the stem is solid. If they've gotten too far up, you may not be able to save the plant. Mine were about 3 inches up. Once I got them all. I tied some twine around the cut stem to hold it together & hoped for the best. I guess it was OK because the plant didn't die & I got a couple of pumpkins from it. I was pretty grossed out when I started pulling them out. YUCKY! By the 3rd one, I was more pissed than grossed. I was like, "How DARE you eat MY plant?!?!?" LOL!

In the last few years I've mostly been making jams and jellies, Ana's raspberry vinegar and Annie's strawberry rhubarb jelly are a couple of my favorites. I'm definitely going to try Natals Berry Berry Hot Pepper Jelly, it looks soooooo good. I freeze more than I can nowadays, always used a water bath when I did can so that limited what I could put up. I used to do a lot of peaches, pears, cherries and plums, they taste way better than what you can buy, especially peaches. We've got a propane burner (for want of a better name) which we take out and fire up outside either in the courtyard or lathhouse where it's cool and do any water bath canning there, no need to steam up the kitchen. Annette

Hi I just started 1 week ago and I've read alot on worm keeping mostly by internet search. I bought 24 red trout worms for $2.50. I have them in a plastic container, with shredded paper of all kinds, plus some old mulch from the garden. I keep it in my basement uncovered. I brought them up to count them and they were all alive and lively. I also have a rubber maid container with about 80 nightcrawlers which are also doing fine. I have a garden which I put alot of food stuff in for organic gardening and the worms just love all the stuff I put in as long as its not meat and grease. I don't have a problem with wild life in it except for the birds and I live back to back to the woods. I use rabbit and horse manure as well as grass clippings, straw, and leftover food from our kitchen. All this organic stuff helps keep the soil moist longer and produced lots of worms for the finding even in the day time. Plus the plants seem to grow faster and healtier. I just started keeping worms inside for the kids as a project. I hope the red trout worms are the same as red worms, just babies. I read somewhere you can keep them in a all paper bed. they do seem to prefer the paper so far. I also read that worms carry both female and male reproductive organs. I'm currently feeding rice bran left over from my horses. I only sprinkle a little a week since they will also eat the paper. I read that red worms will only reproduce if they have the space and food to do so, thus not overwelming someone who don't want alot of bins.

Thanks for the support, ready2moves! tallley sue nyc, I think that's what I am finding, that I have achieved a change in mental perspective over the past couple of years because I finally really stepped out of my usual box and found a few things that have all of the right features (fit, material, color, style, price).. It took me a year or 2 to "collect" a number of items that go together and are different enough from my older clothes so that the "new look" becomes evident. (though, ha ha, just about the time I have tiptoed into new territory, the diabolical fashionista plot to always keep things changing will have dictated a new look). Oh, well! Last night I did a closet overhaul and managed to give up quite a few items--even things that had stuck to me like cockleburrs, good suits and skirts and stuff, mostly not worn in years though. It takes a block of time because what is helpful for me is to try on new and old stuff and go, "This, or that?". When I do that, I can see heck, I'm not gonna wear THAT if I can have THIS. Plus, doh, some stuff just didn't fit anymore no matter what fantasies I had or have. There is a lesson here that is part of the above shopping quote. I need to remember not to accumulate too many of what are essentially duplicate items or styles, since I really can get by with fewer items in any given "type" of clothing (work, church, casual, etc). (Bang head, rinse, repeat) I tend to buy say, a work top in over a dozen colors when I only really need 3 or 4. Then, when the styles (or my figure) shifts a bit, as it always will do, I've got too much space and effort, let alone $$, invested, and I think that makes it harder to shift gears. So, as part of organizing my space, and not expanding into someone else's closet, and using less time to figure out what to wear, I hope to try to "save room" for, not just new clothes that are more of the same, but experimenting with things. Now that really requires a change in mental attitude! Because, if I wear my relatively new stuff that I've finally got together, I DON'T NEED ANY MORE CLOTHES right now (welllllll.. hardly any!) I need to have fun where I am and realize I'll want to try something else down the road. I'm pretty sure being in middle age has a lot to do with this! Not exactly mid-life crisis ( I think I had that already) , but heck, when you're younger, you can basically wear anything, and I was never much attuned to fashion per se. Whereas now, a tweak here or there in length or neckline or something seems to make more difference between looking kinda dowdy vs. not. So, I hadn't thought about it before as "organizing the wardrobe for middle-age issues", but there you have it. A leaner wardrobe, but changing more, actually works better for me now than when I was younger.