I've got a dawn redwood planted in my front yard in South Jersey. It grew 4-5 feet in the first two years. Last year, the ends of the needles started to turn brown. Then every "leaf" on the branch started turning brown and died. I did some research and discovered that it may be causes by something similar to "Sudden Oak Death" syndrome. It's caused by a water mold pathogen. In addition to Oaks, scientists believe it may now be affecting Dawn Redwoods and other trees, as well. You can't overwater Dawn Redwoods. Related to the Bald Cypress, the Dawn Redwood soaks up water like a sponge and loves it. But, this isn't the problem. Dawn Redwoods can get a fungal pathogen that causes the needles to turn brown and eventually the entire branch becomes infected and dies. The fungal spores are spread by water and other affected trees nearby. No chemical on the market seems to kill the pathogen. Scientists suggest cutting the affected branches, removing the tree, etc. that isn't an option for me. I spent a lot of money on my baby and I'm not getting rid of it. I have a feeling the recent wet spring weather we've had here may be the cause. I got a copper based fungicide that I'm going to try. This fungal canker has already killed my two nectarine trees. So there you have it. Sudden Oak Death has destroyed about a million oak trees in California. And, this fungal pathogen I've just described is decimating Redwoods. The disease is called: Botryospheria Dothedia. Or Redwood Canker. As I said, it's a fungal disease. Almost impossible to treat and kill. That's why I'm trying a copper based fungicide spray. Anything is better than watching my dawn redwood slowly croak each day.

Maryl, yes,Custard Candy pumps out a lot of blooms.The color in my photo is a little off,Its showing a slightly pinkish look,and its not a pink.They are alight yellow,some times almost white,but never pinkish. Kay,We got 3 inches of rain here, but 2 inches of it fell within about 25 minutes,then the rest of it was over night,into the following day as a drizzle and a sprinkle.It did cool things off alot, too.We went from 92 down to 69.. Jean

Carol, I have a lot of yellow, orange and red bell peppers in the back garden. I took a chance and left them uncovered because I was busy putting up drywall and taping and bedding it. so I didn't want to stop and go out to the snake-infested garden and cover up the peppers. I figured if they froze, they froze. Well, they didn't freeze. Maybe I'll harvest them today or tomorrow. They are about 75% colored up and I was wanting to wait for them to color up fully before harvesting them. I am just amazed they survived the heat and drought after I quit watering them. The ground near them had cracks nearly 2" wide, and yet the plants survived. Maybe whenever the scant moisture fell, it was going down into the ground via the cracks and the pepper roots were able to access it. The plants wilted badly and almost died several times, but really have revived very well in the month or so since rain started falling regularly again. I am going to cut them and freeze them for fajitas too. At our house the temperature only dropped to 37, although at our mesonet station in Burneyville, it fell to 34 degrees. We had very heavy dew....there were pools of it sitting on top of the floating row cover I had put over the containers of tomato plants, but I haven't seen any signs of frost damage, so I think we were lucky here. I am not sure people closer to Burneyville were as lucky. They may have had patchy frost. Bon, I hope the moisture isn't too much for your garlic. Is is "hard" to complain about moisture when we usually are in desperate need of it, but too much moisture at the wrong time is just as bad as too little. TouCan2, I did a lot of that "hoping" that the forecast was wrong for several years after moving here (usually with frozen plants resulting and killing my hopes), and then I just stopped hoping and bought floating row cover to throw over plants on the first few cold nights of the season. Often, If I cover them up only about once a week, I can keep plants alive and producing until December. The type of row cover I'm currently using was new to me in the spring, and it is the best row cover I've ever bought. It is rated to give 10 degrees of protection, but on some cold nights in the spring, it protected plants when we dropped more than 10 degrees below freezing. Oklahoma weather is so cruel and unforgiving. It doesn't seem "fair" that we had late freezing and nearly-freezing nights in the spring through the first week in May, and now we have early cold freezing nights in October. It seems like if we have late cold nights in the spring, we should get a pass from having early cold nights in the fall of the same year. The cold nights this year have cut at least a good month off our frost-free growing season in 2013. Maybe 2014 will be better. (I feel like we say 'maybe next year will be better' every single year.) I have 7 tomato plants in containers covered in blossoms and small fruit. (One of them is Celebrity. It isn't my favorite in terms of flavor or texture, but it stands up well to drought and disease.) I may or may not move the container plants into the greenhouse (they are huge containers that are really heavy) before the next freezing night or at least frosty temperatures threaten. My experience with "winter tomatoes" is that anything harvested after the end of September (and it is doubly true of any harvested from November onward) has poor flavor compared to tomatoes that ripen in summer's hot temperatures and plentiful sunlight. Having said that, though, the flavor and texture still are better than that of grocery store tomatoes. Most years I harvest tomatoes through at least the end of December, and sometimes into early January, but there's some point at which the flavor becomes so poor and the texture gets kind of mealy and I start asking myself why I even bother. Farmgardener, The nights here have been so cool that my current blossoms this week aren't setting fruit either, but our weather seesaws up and down so wildly here at this time of the year that it is not impossible for them set fruit despite the cool nights. I've had fruit set in November even before I have moved the plants to the greenhouse so they'll stay warmer. It is open to debate whether the flavor of the late fruits makes them worth having. I wish we'd had the better temperatures and moisture y'all had this year. I'm green with envy when all of y'all talk about your rainfall, but am happy y'all have had that improved weather. I just wish we'd had it too. Our summer was still too hot and too dry down here and we remain in Severe Drought, but have had a lot of rain in the last 3 or 4 weeks. I am hoping we'll be able to claw our way out of Severe Drought and make it back to being only in Moderate Drought, or even (it would be a big improvement) back to being merely Abnormally Dry within the next few weeks. I have found it hard to get excited about next year's garden while still dealing with the third consecutive year of persistent drought conditions. I'd like to have a normal year in 2014, though I think I'm forgetting what normal feels like. At least the days are gorgeous lately, even though the nights are cold. Dawn

I've used chapstick off and on for years and I have found the medicated kind to be very soothing. I don't use it all the time, just when I've been out in the wind. Riding in an air-conditioned car for long distances always chaps my lips too. I have sensitive skin and there are a lot of products I just can't use. I don't wear lipstick except for special occasions and sometimes not even then. Doris Day (you younger ones probably won't know even who she is though) said at one time that she covers her whole body with vaseline and sleeps in something like a body stocking and gloves. I don't know if she was married at the time but I bet that's a real turn-off for a guy, huh? But anyway, there are natural alternatives to petroleum products. Good old olive oil, for instance. Or open up a Vitamin E oil capsule and smear it on. I'm not sure about that "Tea Tree Oil" thing though. Is there really such a thing as a "Tea Tree"? It kind of tastes like Castor Oil with almond flavoring in it. The truth of the matter is, we none of us know what's in some of these products we put on our skin. And yes the makers of these products would most definitely sell us something that's not good for us (and charge us big bucks for it) because they don't give a rip about whatever damage it does as long as they don't get sued because of it. The almighty dollar is always the bottom line. We must be our own advocates. The best thing to do is to just keep it as simple as you can. Use as many one- or two-ingredient products as you can. Good old witch hazel is what I used as an astringent during my oily skin days. Buy things without fragrance and without artificial coloring whenever possible. The secret to good skin is actually good health.