I am looking for some Long Island cheese pumpkin seeds (C. moschata). I have plenty of Black Beauty zucchini, as well as a few Waltham butternut seeds to trade. I'm going to be growing some of the butternuts next year but I also want some of these Long Island squash. I'm not sure about variations of the Long Island cheese pumpkin, but I'd like seeds from one that will grow decent sized fruit. Please email me at catman529 @ gmail.com if you have some seeds to trade. Thanks!

Lyra, Yesterday I was given (under the counter at a cafe where I know the staff well) an espresso cup full of homemade "hooch." 90 proof I was told. It was delicious and tasted perhaps of herbs but I have no idea what was in it, only that it was made by a Greek friend named Gus. This got me thinking. As you know I have a son and friend on a boat in the South Pacific. They are on a pretty tight budget and food and libations are astonishingly expensive. They occasionally splurge for some boxed wine and they are sometimes fed by locals in exchange for capable help but often they live on beans, rice, and any fish they catch. So alcohol is an infrequent treat. I was online with the Captain last night and I suggested they try making some homemade wine. They have access to an abundant supply of fresh mangoes and other fruit. I looked up directions for making homemade mango wine and they were fussy, purist, a bit arcane and required a year of aging and ingredients available in a wine store. Well, that won't do! So I looked up "jail house wine." That produced this: "Find any kind of cheap juice. I like cranberry. The way I do it is boil a few cups of sugar mixed with water until it becomes a syrup. I add this to about two gallons of cranberry juice. It sounds too sweet, but it evens out the sour taste from the cranberry. Then I'll take a cup of the juice, warm it up slightly in the mircowave, throw in a packet of yeast and let it sit until it gets a nice head on it. Then I throw that into the rest of the juice, mix it up real good and let set for about a month in a tight container with a small airhole so gas can vent. When the yeast activates, it eats the sugar as food, and the byproduct is alcohol. Its far from a fine wine, but its pretty simple. Its a loose recipe, so it may take some tinkering to get it the way you like it. And remember, the more yeast, the more alcohol. If you can get ahold of some bread yeast over there, that'll do the job, but leaves a slight "bready" flavor if you use too much. Juice+sugar+yeast+time=hooch" Crude but probably effective. There must be some middle ground. I doubt they can find wine yeast or other wine store specific ingredients but can surely find bread yeast and sugar and juice and other things in a grocery store on Bora Bora. Got any recipes or guidance? What do you suggest to Here is a link that might be useful: Will this be useful to send to them?

Neat, Doc, neat! I really like your garden and hope you'll post lots of pics of it! I take several pics of mine each morning as I walk around with my coffee and five gallon Home Depot bucket (for weeds etc). I don't post them all of course, but it's fun to track how the plants grow and change. I love seeing yours! I really should have a sago palm too--I don't have a ton of shade, but I should be able to sneak one in somewhere. Hmmmm..... Happy gardening all!

If you could go back in time, you should have had it finish graded the first time. Whatever you do to this soil will have to be repeated when the final soil is in. Then you could have started watering it as if you wanted to sprout new grass seed. That daily watering would have sprouted all the weed seeds and then the RoundUp would have given you a perfect bed for new grass. Even if you kill all the weeds in this current level of soil, the new soil will bring in more weed seeds. When you start watering the new grass, the new weeds will sprout and you'll be starting with a weedy lawn. Looking forward if you had the soil delivered today, you could begin watering daily now to sprout the weeds, spot spray the Round Up in a week, and then do your seed.