My haphazard methods might not work for you. I save seeds so there are plenty to scatter. I learned a rule of thumb from William Hunt, who gardened in NC, about when to plant. Either scatter seeds in September, or wait until November. His rationale is that the early seeds get started and are hardier. The late planted seeds will wait until the first warm days to germinate and grow off fast. Among the seeds he listed in his book were Chinese froget-me-nots, Anchusa italic, Shirley poppies, larkspur, California poppies, Viola tricolor, Baby-Blue-Eyes and Iceland poppies. He recommended waiting until November to plant sweet peas. I break my own rules, planting where there's a space, when I have seeds and time. I usually wait until after a rain, but my soil is sandy. Last year I had success with planting mid-winter some poppies and silene and things after the barn was gone and the spot leveled. The best advice I can give is to plant only half your seeds at a given time. Sow in loose soil, then firm the ground, cover great big seeds. Experiment, keep notes; do what works. Nell

Alameda, Chris could easily be a climber here (and what a wonderful one he'd be), and I just know my trellis isn't big enough. I haven't had the heart to hit up DH again to do a bigger support. The bamboo was difficult for him to deal with. It will take some sweet talking, I am sure. Weeds? It looks good now but I have tons of warm-weather weeds. That awful onion stuff that has underground runners. I use a weeder tool on them in early spring and summer. Once the roses and daylilies grow up big, I can barely fit in there to weed and they start winning out. I am not compulsive enough to do it every day. I need to. Kathy

Mark, challenge experiemnts have been done and the efficacies you post I don't think are too far off from such data that I've seen. There's a reason why almost all the alerts from almost all states here in the NE have been suggesting Daconil alternating with a copper product, b'c Daconil is known to be highly preventive. No product is 100% effective, as you know. Unless it's known that a specific disease is in the specific area where one garedens one can spray anything and conclude it worked, same as folks using eggshells and claiming that they prevent BER. I don't think your first picture indicated LB at all and right now I forget the second picture. LOL One of the prime sources of LB in the past has been just East of you in potato country where potato cull piles have been the source of LB. but you'd need easterly winds to get the highest exposure and where you and I live the winds are westerly. You mentioed Bravo, but in NYS that can only be sold to commercial farmers with a pesticide license. Same for Tatoo, and both are Daconil at a higher concentration and there are some other products that also can be used only by those with pesticide licenses. Can an LB infected plant survive the infection? To date I've had no personal experience with that but everything I've read says no, it's lethal. If you find anything to the contrary on the net, please share that with us. Is that Gold Fleck on your Dix Doight de Naples fruits? it sure looks like it rather than being stinkbug bites. Carolyn

I am soooo relieved that the Miralax is working for Casey (and I'm sure she is, too)! I feel the same way every time I see one of Billy's nice long tootsies. Constipation can make them feel so miserable and sick. You have vastly improved Casey's quality of life with Miralax. I definitely think you should take your neighbor up on her offer to administer subQs for you at home. I know you're having a hard time believing that Casey will be more cooperative with less restraint, but hopefully your neighbor will be able to demonstrate the validity of that for you. I do understand your misgivings, though. Billy is extremely short-tempered and does NOT like to be messed with, so when he was diagnosed with both CRF and hyperT, I was dreading having to medicate him, much less having to eventually administer subQs to my potentially violent old man. To make matters worse, my housemate moved out right before Billy started needing subQs, so I was faced with having to administer them without any assistance. I had nightmares of lying on the floor bleeding to death with Billy firmly attached to my jugular vein. But what choice did I have? Billy needed subQs, and I was the only one here to administer them. I knew my only chance of surviving the procedure was to keep it all as low key as possible. Billy had chosen a diningroom chair as his favorite sleeping spot, so I rigged a way to hang the fluid bag from the curtain rod next to the chair. While he was napping, I quietly hung the bag, sat down next to him (which instantly woke him and caused him to stand up), and slipped in the needle as quickly as possible. To my utter amazement, Billy didn't object at all. He stood there while I silently stroked his face until the administration was finished. I was stunned at how easily it all went. Things have changed a bit since then. It didn't take Billy long to figure out that the diningroom chair was where he got his fluids, so he abandoned the chair and started napping elsewhere. Now I have to find him and carry him to the chair for fluids, but as long as I do so quietly and carry him carefully, he usually doesn't do more than grumble softly. Sometimes if I don't get the needle exactly where he wants it, he'll start growling in mid-administration. I have to be VERY careful at that point NOT to touch him (other than to hold the needle in place), or he'll attack me. So I just hold my hand an inch or two in front of his chest so that he knows I won't allow him to leave, and he stays put and growls until I'm finished. If I get the needle in a comfortable spot, however, he'll generally sit or stand without objection until we're done. I can absolutely guarantee you, though, that if I did anything other than use my body position to restrict his movement, he'd fight like a demon during subQs. There is absolutely NO WAY that a restraint bag would do anything other than increase Billy's fight instinct, and I suspect the same will be true for Casey. You need to reduce the stress response, not increase it, in order to be successful with subQs. A restraint bag is likely to feel a lot like a carrier to Casey, so she may very well have the same stress response to the bag that she has to her carrier. Casey's also likely to be in a considerably happier (and hopefully more cooperative) mood now that she's not dealing with chronic constipation anymore. Don't worry. All of this will work out, one day and one procedure at a time. Laurie