Just a note "Dio Tenaceous" earth is actually "diatomaceous earth" (aka "DE"), as it is made of diatoms. :) When you use it either for garden or pet, there are some cautions to take. First, always use "food grade" DE. Pool-grade DE is too sharp and can be harmful; it is not meant to be ingested or used on pets or plants where humans or pets could ingest (or lick). Fresh-water food-grade is best, but most organic gardening places and many online shops sell food-grade DE. Second, as with ALL dusts, please do not use so much that you can really see it or breathe it, and always make sure either to not breathe it and use eye protection if there is a wind (and cover your pets' eyes), or use a dust mask, etc. One way of distributing it is by using a pizza cheese sprinkler. Planting tomatoes: When you plant them, pick the leggier plants. Pick off the lower branches of your transplants, and plant the tomato at an angle / Various: Look up "companion planting" there are many plants that grow well together. If you plant companion plants at the base of taller plants, you will have to do less weeding, and you will water more efficiently. One example is planting greens between onions, or basil at the feet of tomatoes. Strawberries. Plant radish patches near your strawberry patches. The radishes will draw the lygus bugs away from your strawberry blooms. You can them vacuum them off of the radishes or use your organic chemicals there without hurting your delicate berries.

I hibernate like my roses and watch the garden from a window. From my kitchen window I can see the blanda rose 'Betty Bland' with red canes next to Rosa pendulina, with its red flagonshaped hips. Other roses with hips near the house are R. moyesii, alba Suaveolens, R. stellata mirifica, the Portland rose and several rugosas. Pines, junipers, box and yew topiary add evergreen interest. The highlight of my winter garden is the round boxedged bed that looks wonderful powdered with snow while the sides are green. Close to the front door are two large box balls, mahonia, cherry laurel, Christmas roses and a clipped yew with red berries. I have put most evergreens where I can see them from inside or walking up to the house, redleaved bergenia 'Winterglow', rhododendrons, periwinkle, eight small box balls, euonymus 'Emerald'n Gold', cotoneaster 'Coral Beauty' and dwarf conifers like Picaea glauca 'Conica'.

Ugh! I lost the long reply I had to everyone. Don't have time to re-write right now but thanks to the ideas you offered up, I've decided on a theme (Team Umizoomi - my boy/girl twins love them!) and will incorporate their circle/shapes/numbers theme into a few of the games that were suggested - particularly the obstacle course. christina_ca - I am planning on an "adopt-a-puppy" (play) theme next year for their 4th. A friend suggested it & did it for her daughter. She said it was such a fun time. She collected stuffed puppies on sale/clearance in the months before the party. On the day of the party, she had each child go with her into another room so they could select their puppy privately and then each child went to different "stations" - check up by the vet (her DH is a doctor so he was in white coat with his basic dr kit), pretend bath & grooming station, puppy treats station and receive official adoption certificate station. That was enough activity apparently and it worked perfectly for everyone to have their puppies and go into ice cream & cake. My goal now is to use the theme but remember what I wanted in the first place: an old-fashioned backyard birthday party. Having the theme puts everything into focus for me now - I didn't think to have a theme until y'all mentioned it. Again, thanks for all the ideas.

From Grainlady in 2016 "I teach cooking/nutrition classes at the Food Bank (and other venues), and one tip I give people of limited means, and the elderly on fixed incomes, is to purchase the largest bag of frozen mixed vegetables they can afford. Leave a portion mixed (for adding to soup, shepherd's pie, casseroles...) and then separate the rest so they will now have separate containers of corn, green beans, peas, broccoli, etc., depending on what combination they purchased. This will give them the biggest variety and is a huge money saver. The biggest problem with frozen vegetables, whether they are commercially prepared or from your garden, there are no enzymes left due to processing. We still need foods in our diet that provide enzymes (http://www.getting-started-with-healthy-eating.com/enzymes-in-food.html). Another favorite frozen vegetable I keep in the freezer are petit whole green beans (Aldi); and I like to keep some frozen chopped onion or onion/pepper combination on hand (a quick pizza topping). I typically use more fresh chives in cooking than I do onions, so freezing onion keep them readily available. When fresh from the garden aren't available, I prefer freeze-dried to frozen, since they are as close to fresh-picked as a commercial product can get, plus they maintain their enzymes through processing. For the "fresh only" crowd. Unless you grow and harvest it yourself, there's no such thing as "fresh" produce in the store. This is why I grow sprouts, micro-greens, and grow and juice wheatgrass, along with growing fresh herbs in a sunny south window. Even in the middle of winter I have REAL fresh vegetables. There is also a favorite vegetable we typically eat raw that is actually more nutritious once cooked - CARROTS. Skip the "baby" carrots, bagged carrots, and get some with the greens still attached since they are fresher, and the greens are also edible. "Cooked whole carrots served with olive oil have up to eight times more beta-carotene than raw baby carrots." Cooking carrots make some of the nutrients more bioavailable, and choose sautéed or steamed methods to help retain more of the food value. If you cook carrots whole, and THEN slice/chop them after being cooked, you'll get more nutrients than if you cut them before you cook them. They are best eaten with some type of oil or fat since beta-carotene is a fat-soluble nutrient that needs to be coated in fat for greatest absorption. The highest concentration of nutrients is just below the skin, so scrub carrots, rather than peel them. If you can find purple carrots, you'll hit the nutrition jack-pot! Sweet potatoes - Steaming, roasting, or baking can double their antioxidant value, but boiling reduces it. The skin is more nutritious than the flesh, so scrub, rather than peel, sweet potatoes. -Grainlady" https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/4028525/supermarket-frozen-vegetables#n=41 6 Likes Save July 17, 2016 at 6 ETA: Several posts were deleted after posting, so are no longer there. They seemed to be the ones poking the most fun at the comment.