A friend who gardened with me at a school garden would not thin....claimed it was "playing God". Instead, she let me do the thinning and made some comments about me being God. We had a serious talk and put a stop to that talk. She now understands that many of the veggies will never produce a decent harvest if we don't thin. But, I am the one who must do most of the thinning, just without any unwelcome comments. You say: "i didn't have the heart to thin the summer squash, zukes, and tomatoes... so i'm gonna be dropping them off on door steps in the middle of the night! " If those plants are seriously crowded they will have poor or no yield and there will be nothing to drop off anywhere. Crowding of some plants also gives a greater chance of fungal and other disease. You may want to tough it out and thin some more....or get a gardening friend to do it for you :) I don't like to "waste seeds" (aka "thin") much myself and make my own seed tapes for radish, carrot, and some other small seeds. I'll space them about twice as thick as I want them. If everything germinates there is some thinning to do yet, but not near what I'd need to do if I direct planted with my clumsy fingers.

A plant autopsy is always useful to find out WHY it did what it did, so you can adjust care if necessary and thereby make failure less likely to happen again whether you plant a tree of the same type, a different tree, or nothing at all. For example, I dug up several Cercis last year and discovered the roots were all circled in on themselves in the ground--the roots had never spread out correctly for healthy growth. It was not the care they received--they were sitting in their containers far too long and the root systems were doomed. It may have helped in initial planting to have trimmed the roots to remove all the circled material, but that was not done by the installers. The one Cercis I planted myself that was very fresh in a 15 gallon container and that did not have circled roots, was 10 times as healthy, even though it was in the same soil and received the same care as the others. So I learned to examine the root systems before buying any tree, and after, if they fail, to see what happened.

Hi sweeby - I lost total hearing in my left ear as the result of a brain tumor. It is a daily struggle to participate in conversations, but I work really hard at trying to listen when someone is speaking to me, I give them my undivided attention. I do have to ask people to repeat, and most of the time it isn't a problem. There are many times that I am not aware someone is talking to me, so they literally need to be in my face LOL It is obvious that you are really trying to work with your hubby, and I see your frustration. I know my hubby has to constantly be aware when he is speaking to me and it is alot of work for him as well. Sounds like maybe your hubby is in denial? Especially having profound hearing loss at only 50. Wish he would go to an audiologist because there are so many wonderful hearing devices available. Some so small that you can't see them in the ear. It has been 8 years since I lost my hearing and there has not been anything on the market that would help me. My hearing nerve was removed. Anyway, there is a brand new device that was just approved and I will be getting mine next week. I am very excited!! I know it will not replicate what I had pre-brain tumor, but it will sure make life easier for me and everyone around me. Hang in there!! matti

Well, you might try the personal letter or knocking on doors thing, if you have some specific homes or neighborhoods that you're very interested in. There are often folks pondering whether to sell or not, and a letter or someone at their door stating that they are interested in purchasing their home might be what motivates them to get a move on. I'm getting a letter once a week for a rental condo I own, because it's in a highly desirable complex and nothing is available. While I'm not interested in selling, every letter makes me pause and consider it after the troubles we've had with it lately (new water heater, a/c broke, water leaks to downstairs unit, etc) The last house I sold, when my buyers couldn't find anything quickly enough (everything was going under contract the same day it listed, and they lived out of town so couldn't see it in time), I walked down to a house that had been on the market six years prior, and asked if they might be interested in selling again. We closed 45 days later.