Depending on what part of BC you're in (it's a BIG place!) you could grow the same stuff I'm growing here in WA state. I've been pulling stuff up from natural ponds and streams where legal. I've got a lot of native wetland stuff that way. Yellow monkey flower, creeping veronica I pulled out of a lawn actually but it's a wetland plant, coltsfoot, piggyback plant, water parsley. Duckweed from a friend's pond, necessary to cover water surface to reduce algae. And the goldfish will eat it. I've also got Japanese iris, they're perfectly hardy here in USDA zone 7/8. And some native sedges etc I don't know the names of, and a small hardy water lily from the nursery. Just ask at the nursery what they've got that's hardy. goldfish will eat pretty much anything and they need a lot of space as they're very dirty fish. A 50 gallon tank shouldn't have more than a couple or three goldfish for optimal health of plants and fish. They'll keep the mosquitoes down, but they'll also eat any frog eggs or damselflies or water beetles. I keep the fish out of the pond and use floating Bt tabs for the mosquitoes. In the winter, even our mild winters, my 25 gallon tub will freeze over but never so far solid. I cut the plants back after frost and sink them to the bottom of the tub for the winter so they'll be protected from the cold by the water. That just means that I take any supports out from under the pots so they're all sitting on the bottom. Then when it warms up in spring I pull them out and put the bricks and stones back under them. So long as the water doesn't freeze solid the goldfish will be fine but don't feed them in cold weather. They need to go into like suspended animation over the winter and feeding them will make them sick.

Kirsty, Before you yank out your peas, try starting a thread just about the peas. Link one or two pea photos and ask a simple question like "what is wrong with these peas". Then, Dorothy and others who routinely grow peas will see that thread, and hopefully they can tell you what is going on. I think it probably is disease caused by the very wet spring, but also might be heat-related. Since I seldom grow peas, I don't feel qualified to state with confidence that it "is this" or "is that". I hate to see anyone rip out a maturing crop without taking time to be sure that the likelihood of getting a good harvest is diminishing. If that is powdery mildew on the peas, you can treat with any fungicide, organic or chemical in nature, that is labeled for use on edible crops. I would never attempt to transplant a tomato that is in the ground at this point, unless it is still very, very small (and yours are not). With tomato plants that are very overcrowded this early in the season, you have several options. 1.) Leave them as they are, have fun harvesting from the wild jungle this summer, and plant with better spacing next year. This isn't as bad as it sounds. If your worst garden problem is that you planted too early and have to crawl into a jungle to harvest your 'maters, then that's not such a horrible problem, is it? 2.) Take a cutting from every other plant. Root the cuttings in water or soil (your choice) and start raising replacement plants. When I raise cuttings, I put one variety per container and label it with masking tape labels to keep the varieties straight. A week or two later (once your rooted cuttings have nice roots), remove evey other plant (it's OK---you already have your replacements for them growing). By removing and composting (sorry!) those plants, you've given the remaining plants twice the space to grow, enlarge and fruit. Then, after peas, lettuce, brussels sprouts, broccoli and other cool season crops come out (it is hot enough that they should be finishing up soon now), plant your cutting-grown plants in those empty spaces. That way, you'll have great tomato plants for fall and your spring-planted plants will have more room. 3) Or, after you've got cuttings going, instead of pulling up and trashing the plants, you could cut the plants back HARD, removing all but about the bottom food of growth and then dig them up and attempt to transplant them. The key is to cut them back so the roots are not too stressed from the shock of transplant + trying to support a large amount of topgrowth. Keep them watered well the first month (moist, not soggy) after they were transplanted and they should regrow and produce for fall. If not, you have back-up cutting grown plants. This only works if the bottom foot of the plant has a lot of healthy foliage. Otherwise, if the bottom foot is all stem and few leaves, they likely will not survive the transplanting process. 4) Leave them exactly as they are, but prepare for their continued growth. First, remove the branches, limbs, and suckers from the bottom 12-18" of the crowded plants. This will open up that lower area for better air flow which is a key issue and will help your plants avoid summer diseases like Early Blight. Then, mulch heavily under the plants to keep weeds down and to reduce soil splash and disease. (Diseases in the soil are splashed up onto the tomato stems and leaves when it rains or when you use overhead watering.) To keep the plants from falling over and taking down their cages, stake them. You can use whatever you have handy to serve as stakes. When I need stakes, I go to the lumber area at Lowe's or Home Depot and buy a bundle of construction stakes. They usually come in 2' and 3' heights, and sometimes in 4'. Currently, I am using the ones that are 4'tall. Stake each cage with one or two stakes to keep them from falling over. I hammer the stakes into the ground with an ordinary hammer, and attach the stakes to the cages with zip ties. If you find more bargain cages on sale, buy enough that you can turn each small cage into a tall cage. Use zip-ties (found in the electrical section of hardware and home center stores) to attach one 'new' cage to each existing one. So, you're attaching the top ring of each new cage to the top ring of each old cage and the legs of the new cage are sticking up into the air. This will allow your plants to grow upwards for 2 or 3 more feet and will keep your plants from becoming such an unruly mass. Trust me, this is a great solution for your current dilemma. 5. Leave the tomato plants as they are, but put some 6' t-posts every few feet, buy some twine or wire, and use the Florida Weave techinique to keep your plants growing upwards above their current cages. Google to find some photos/how to's for the Florida Weave, or do a search on the tomato forum. There--I've given you several tomato options and any of them will help you maintain a little control without sacrificing too much of your potential harvest. By the way, winter time is a great time to make your tomato cages, trellises, etc. for spring and it allows you to spend the money then, instead of in the spring when garden costs are high. If you make your cages in several different diameters, you can store smaller ones inside of bigger ones which are stored inside still larger ones, and they won't take up too much storage space in the off-season. Dawn

Croakie - I couldn't see your picture. I saw my first dragonfly (actually a damselfly) of the year yesterday. A drab little fellow; dark brown/black (I didn't ID it), but I was delighted to see it nontheless. What is it about dragonflies? Maybe because they were so abundant when I was a kid, and now there are so few of them. Or maybe because they're just so darned pretty. At any rate, I welcomed this little one, and I hope he brings his friends along. The mosquitoes/gnats are getting bad.

Thanks for info, Damp. I had my thinking cap on some days ago and I'm lucky that I have a couple of bushes near the pond that I can use to tie my netting to, along with a bamboo pole, leaving it free for the birds and other wildlife to come and go safely underneath. Wilkinson's sell two types of pond/garden netting, one of which is very fine and isn't very visible over the pond. I would NEVER use this, the wider variety, or the usual green garden netting in my garden because I had a very upsetting experience years ago when a poor blackbird got caught up in it and died. Considering how I look after all my birds and creatures in the garden, I was absolutely mortified and decided to never to use it again. I now use either narrow gauge chicken wire or those mini plastic tunnels sold for veg rows.