I'll really need to keep a close eye on these for a while. Although I'm still horrified at what was there, I have others that are more valued or at least more fragile. (Maybe!) I'd still hate to think of what it would cost to replace all of these, regardless. :~0 My weather has been unusually cool, all summer. In fact, regardless of the past few "hot" days, I can feel a major change coming. These darned temp swings from high 90F down to mid-40'sF. At least the nights a nice and cool for sleeping. I'm already prepairing for another emergency late-night moving of orchids. We had a major frost wipe out the tomatoes in early September, one year. So...I'm already getting worried! As far as cats, I've got the most worthless ones I've ever seen. Plus, I can't stop everyone from keeping food for them 24/7! It also attracts local cats and foxes. I spent one summer killing racoons virtually every single night at the cat food. I just cleaned out the carport to poor concrete it and the lazy cats have been living on literally hundreds of mice!:~( As far as I'm concerned, no one is getting fed for some time! Get to work you lazy felines!

Don't feel bad! I get tons of that s#$t from my neighbors yards! They don't try at all to control crap grass or clover (they have lovley white carpeted lawns most of the summer then the cg takes over) Its a royal battle trying to keep it out of my yard. The cg seed heads ripen, then when they break off, blower all over, spreading their wonderful presents. I've built a raised bed (3') along one lot line to keep their mess from filtering into my yard, and that's helping.

I think so. It depends on whether they are healthy, on whether you can keep them healthy and happy in our tough weather conditions and on whether you can keep the spider mites off of them. Since the recommended fall planting date range begins July 1st, if I bought them, I'd pot them up into larger containers than they're in now, and since it is hot I'd go with 3 or 5 gallon containers. I'd water them every morning, and then check them every evening to see if they needed to be watered again. I'd feed them every week with a water-soluable plant food diluted to half its usual strength. I'd site them so they'd get morning sun and afternoon shade, or at least so they get shade during the middle of the day. I'd hold them in this situation for a week or two to help them get over being left in their current containers too long since they are 'leftovers' from the spring planting season. I'd start watching the weather during the last week in June and hope for a 'cool' day to come along near early July. Then on the evening before that cool day, I'd transplant them into the garden and water them in well. I'd probably put a cage around them right away, and then use clothespins to clip a sheet or tablecloth or someting over them to give them a break from the sun for the first 3 or 4 days. Some sunlight would be alright, but mostly you want to shade them until they recover from being transplanted. There are plus and minuses to being end-of-season plants, but in the case of the tomatoes, if they are healthy at this point, the pluses outweigh the minuses because they are a little older, a little stronger, have a larger root system and clearly have been well-cared for or they wouldn't still be alive right now. They are likely to adapt well and flower/produce fruit as soon as the temperatures fall back into the proper range. If you're going to go out of town for a couple of weeks on vacation and no one will be around to take care of them, I wouldn't buy them because in our heat, they need daily care. In May, I reached a point where I had to do something with my back-up plants. Nothing had died, so I hadn't had to use them to replace anything and they were getting way too big for the plastic cups in which they were growing, and they needed to either be planted or thrown on the compost pile. Well, clearly, I have a "more is better" attitude, so I squeezed in a new row of tomato plants in between an existing row of tomatoes and a row of pepper plants. I figured the worst that would happen is that they were too rootbound and wouldn't grow and I'd yank them and compost them. For about 2 or 2 & 1/2 weeks, they just sat there. They didn't grow at all, but they didn't go downhill either. I handled them as I described above, except they obviously were in the ground and not in pots, and then they finally started growing. Though still significantly smaller than the tomatoes that were planted at the right time, they neverthe less look good and are blooming, If the weather permits, they'll eventually set fruit. In fact, they look healthier than plants that went into the ground in early April, likely because during a lot of the time they were held in cups, they were shaded from the sun for half of each day. So, while planting them late was a risk, I'm happy with the result and glad I didn't compost them. If nothing else, in July when the adjacent row of pepper plants is getting hot, cranky and tired, this last row of tomato plants will be tall enough to partially shade the peppers, which is a good thing. So, my attitude is 'nothing ventured, nothing gained', and I'd give those plants a chance. dawn

This is the 2nd in a series of 4 photo tours of Public California Garden Spots in the Silicon Valley Area. It is being reposted here using thumbnails to satisfy demand for viewing by folks who have only dial-up modems and were unable to tolerate loading photo links to photobucket.com. Click on Thumbnails to Enlarge Them It's wonderful to be taking Monday off. And I just can't get this gardening hobby out of the blood, needed sunshine for the flu and needed to feed my photographer's bent. So I went Japanese for the day ... And on inside the gate ... The nice thing about Japanese Gardens is that they have everything a good visual artist loves ... geometries, lines, textures, light, shade and color. I usually don't like to post my better photos on the web, but OK. There are some nice pics in what follows and in the next "I Think I'm Going Japanese #2" thread which has photos from Hakone Gardens above Saratoga and Monte Soreno, here in the South Bay. There's nothing that makes a good picture about the following, but it does show some of the wonderful textures visible in the garden ... I like this shot ... Those are from the Japanese Friendship Garden in San Jose's Kelly Park. It's a nice peaceful place where you can sit down and let your mind settle. If you are into visual arts, Japanese Gardens offer numerous opportunities to explore those things which ultimately make your art good. I hope you enjoy the Pics as much as I enjoyed visiting the gardens this morning. Have a nice one.