My gardening buddy across the street said he had some chelated iron he would share with me for those plants that are showing signs of deficiency - all this rain is washing lots of nutrients out of the soil. This may also help the tomatoes, Sheri. We'll see what Dawn says. The Husky Cherry Red tomatoe plants are doing much better than any other cherries I've EVER planted. The foliage is so rugose that I don't think much of anything is eating it at all. Good for the tomatoes, bad for the hornworms. They have blooms all over them, and every time I pass them, I give them a shake. I'm getting lots of tiny little green balls, about the size of a pea, all over them. YEAH! I will definitely plant these again. The fennel is growing in leaps and bounds now, and I have about 30 black swallowtail eggs on my 4 plants. I put my little Bordered Patch and Silvery Checkerspot cats in my pop-up butterfly hamper. Some of the Silveries are already starting to make a chrysalis, and they are SO TINY, that they just look like tiny black balls when they form a "J". I rescued them all, you may remember, because the wasps were hovering all around the sunflower patch. They love to suck them dry. There is this HUMONGOUS red wasp that keeps hanging around - what kind is it? A hornet? Ugh.....gives me the shivers! Dawn, a month ago I had tons and tons of ladybugs. Now, all of a sudden, I see maybe one a day. What happened to them all? I do have plenty of lacewing eggs all over, so maybe they will come along and eventually consume the aphids. I wish the ladybugs would come back. I'm afraid to buy any because in all likelihood something is eating them and I don't want to just release a bunch of food for whatever it is. The mosquitoes are just horrible! I sure wish I had that bat house. But, I've almost decided I'll have to get a 30' pole (bury and set part of the pole in concrete) to mount it on. My house is a small cottage and doesn't have a very tall roofline. The website Dawn referred me to suggests at least 20' off the ground. I tried washing those aphids off, but it is so hard for me to bend over and get them all. I think I'll take some alcohol and Q-tips and just go sit on the ground and swab them off. I don't think the power spraying is really killing them. While I think the aphids serve a good purpose (they are great for identifying milkweed in the field) or growing around the house (like I have cynanchum laeve, milkweed vine, popping up all around), they sure do cause the black sooty mold on the plants. In the past, I've never had to worry about it cause the ladybugs did their job. But, it looks like it's a "hands on" year for me. Does anyone know how long it takes trumpet vine to blooms from seed? I have one that is the peach flowering one that is now two years old and hasn't bloomed yet. I think I heard that sometimes it takes 3-5 years for them to bloom when grown from seed. BTW - I think we had about half an inch of rain yesterday afternoon. It was very loud, hard rain storm. Susan

Nik - because of massive historic flooding of all of our local towns in the late 19th century (mostly local creeks taking over their "flood plains" where people had put towns), and the first half of the 20th, our infrastructure is in pretty good shape to prevent flooding. Also the cities - my town had crews out clearing flood drains and gutters several days before our deluge was predicted to start. We had no flooding, although some trees did fall over and block roads, etc. They were weakened by the long drought I presume. The areas which have bad flooding are usually the ones which get a huge amount of rain where it is not usual for that to happen. There have been some deaths in CA lately because idiots "drive around the FLOODED - ROAD CLOSED barriers", and drown in their cars, or trying to escape from their cars. Jackie

I had issues with some Hosta I tried to plant in the rain. Better off potting them and waiting for drier weather. Absolutely crazy weather this year - Freeze followed by flood followed by fire - upper 80s here the past weekend and today. Not great weather to be waiting for Hosta deliveries (or planting). Luckily two shipments made it on Friday/Saturday, but one still in transit after being mailed last Monday. Fingers crossed. I have been using the frost blanket squares I cut to protect from direct sun on my new plantings. Just some plant stakes and clothes pins and viola.

Melissa - so happy to hear that you have been having good precipitation! Here in Northern CA it has been sunny, and in the high 60s or even low 70s degrees F every day for weeks. They now start counting our rainfall on Oct 1, and since then we have gotten 1/3rd of an inch of rain. (So, I turned our irrigation system off, but have had to turn it on again). No this is NOT "normal". I think our normal to date for this date is well over 5 inches. Sigh. They are now predicting some rain for this coming Sat and Sun, but I will believe it when I see it. So, enjoy your rain and snow! Jackie