Our city has to come in and trim trees too. I wish they would just REMOVE the tree. I got tired of them whacking at my silver maple, making it lopsided. It was ugly, but not only that, I was worried it would fall over and cause even more damage. I tried to convince them to cut it down (they have taken out other people's trees), but they told me no. I probably could have fought it a little harder, but I just gave in and paid for it to be taken down. Ouch. It's an expensive item. I drive past houses on some of our major roads that have trees cut in the V shapes to accommodate the wires. I can't say I like those any better than my lopsided trees, although at least they are more balanced. I've been trying to establish a shade garden, it is not easy!

stillwelljill---I buy 2 and a half cu. liter bags of MG potting mix and can do approx. 50-60 2 liter bottles. But I add a small % of perlite to my mix. Keep in mind milk jugs take more soil than 2 liter bottles. I don't do milk jugs usually, so don't know how much on them. Hope this helps. Duane

Mulch and/or some gravel with creeping or wooly thyme as a lawn substitute? Or chamomile, if you prefer... I love the look of thyme lawns, but if that's too much, it looks very nice growing amongst path paving materials as well. And you get fragrance, too! Thyme needs sun, good drainage and not too much foot traffic to look good. Whether you're a Pinterest member or not, you can go to Pinterest and search for photos using the search box. Just type (for example) thyme lawn or lawn alternative or garden gravel, and you'll get some photos to look at, with some of the photos leading to 'How-to' articles... I'm not fond of grass either, and am slowly trying to reduce the amount of centipede we have in the front and back yards... I do like that native grass look with some stands of ornamental grasses, so am trying to figure out how to incorporate that look as the centipede eventually recedes. To quote from Red Green: "We're all in this together"... Good luck, Virginia

last year I did around 500 tomato plants and around 450 pepper plants. This was for 2 farmers markets and a farm store. I will do around the same this year as I am dropping one farmers market and replacing it with a CSA. I am also counting on the peppers doing a lot better this year. Last year 95% of the plants did not get ripe fruit on them before the first frosts. they were about 5 weeks late in setting fruit and I have no idea why. The 100 peppers in the hoop house produced early as they were supposed to but over 75% got sunscald and than bacterial rot. I grow mainly sweet peppers with a mix of hybrid green to red bells (by far the best seller) along with green to orange, green to yellow and purple to red bells. i also do some funky heirlooms for those who like an adventure in food because the taste is generally better than the hybrids. I also do a small amount (less than 25 total) of hot peppers, mainly jalapenos and cayennes as those sell the best for me. Last year I did 27 different types of tomatoes, mainly heirlooms. Red maters are the mainstay but I also do purple, black, white, green, yellow, orange, etc.. I also do around 50 cherry tomato plants (do not go hog wild on cherries as they take a lot longer to harvest than the big maters)