I decorate for all major holidays & seasons. I have to say it's actually not so much fun doing the decorating but I love the end result. We went pumpkin picking so in the front of my house I have bales of hay with pumpkins, ghourds, mums. On my front walkway I have metal jack-o-lantern buckets with mums. I change my holiday flag for all seasons plus the outfit on a little "welcome dog" & there are always a few garden stakes that change. For Halloween we also had a scarecrow & an inflatable ghost/jack-lantern ballon. Of course I change my door decorations as well & even my door mat. On my patio I added a windsock & change the 2 wall decorations. In my daughter's room I take out all her holiday plush. My diningroom & livingroom have a change of candles & I add cornucopias plus I have have silk mums & several asst. Halloween items. Now that Halloween is over I took off anything CLEARLY Halloween & in its place added a turkey here & there, plus I changed my flag, doormat, dog's outfit, balloon to a turkey, etc. It's allot of work. And this is nothing compared to Xmas where my sister & I spent 2 days decorating my house, which even includes changing dishes BUT I don't even consider doing outside lights. It's actually getting to be too much. Michie

Whewwww!! Like I don't spend enough time looking at things. thanks....I think. LOL

Very pretty will have to try it

For a spring planting, the OSU-recommended planting dates are: Pumpkins April 10-30 or later (depends on when you want to harvest them) Winter Squash May 15 June 15 For a fall planting, the OSU recommended planting dates are: Pumpkins & Winter Squash July 15-30 Note I listed both winter squash and pumpkins. That's because many of the more decorative (and mostly non-orange) pumpkins actually are winter squash. Also, technically speaking, all pumpkins are winter squash but not all winter squash are pumpkins. The spring planting dates for pumpkins is earlier because the types of winter squash that we call pumpkins (C. pepo and C. maxima types) will germinate in slightly cooler soils. By planting them in April, you have the best chance of getting plants off to a good, fast start so they are larger and more resilient when the SVBs show up, which may help them survive the SVBs. The types of winter squash we commonly refer to as winter squash generally need warmer soils for soil germination, so they are planted later in spring or even in early summer. The fall planting dates are the same because soil temperatures are plenty warm in July. If you've never grown squash or pumpkins, you may not have any squash vine borers around. I didn't have any for he first 7 or so years. Once they find you, though, you'll have them about 9 years out of 10. Carol, I've never had much eat peppers, but the pests I have found eating sweet peppers are turtles. They also love to eat low-hanging tomatoes. I've seen them stand up on their hind legs, with their front legs resting on the plant, a stake or a cage, and eat both peppers and tomatoes. So, maybe you have turtles. I've never seen squirrels eating sweet peppers but I think maybe they do because I've found half-eaten peppers higher up on a plant than any ground-based turtle or rabbit could reach. jmichigan, I wonder why they aren't pollinating. You know you can hand-pollinate, right? Just use a small paintbrush (the kind from a watercolor set is fine) or Q-tip to transfer the pollen from the male flower to the female flower. It is easy. It works best early in the day shortly after the flowers have opened up. Squash vine borers are the bane of my existence and totally destroyed my ability to grow all the many kinds of pumpkins and squash that I used to grow. One of these days, we're going to build a hoop house covered in netting to keep them out, though it might not happen until Tim retires. Dawn