Morning!! Margo, it's not as bad to take care of as people think. I think because its bigger, its pretty self sufficient. I do need to get in it every month or so and weed. My water plants reproduce so quickly they would cover the whole top if I didn't. What's nice is I put all the pulled ones in a wheelbarrow and bring them down to the veggie garden. Pile them up and let them dry. I about a week they are bone dry. So dry they crumble! I use them for fertilizer. I don't know if its the pond water, fish waste or what but those plants work almost like miracle grow ;) Shirley, we have a Master Gardener's plant swap usually every year here around Mother's Day. I say usually, cause this year we didn't have one? I was so busy at the time, never asked why, and till you just mentioned it forgot all about it :) My fair swap has been growing a little every year by 1 or 2 people. :) A lot of the same people come every year once they get hooked. The like the variety of different things I bring every year. What's awesome is that it all comes from the gw. :) The seed swaps in the fall produce nice little babies for my swap. This year I tried a bunch of Dianthus.... I have Ipswitch, Black Adder, Yellow something I can't remember, Black Magic, Fire Witch...as you can see I got most of these from the Halloween swap last year :) I also have some different Althea's that I can't remember right now, lol. The turtle is officially done. He's not a fancy turtle, but, he does look cute. ;) The kids are so excited I hope he wins. Taylor was looking through the entry list for ecology classes. She's entering photography, art (painting and sculpture), sewing, flower arranging (gee, wonder where she's gonna get those?), and house plant arrangement. I have 1 house plant in my house. Taylor's zebra plant. This thing has produced 8 babies! She took my tea cup planter and planted them around in it. She then used one of my old spoons and stuck it in. Made a tea bag tag to tie to the spoon, " Taylor's Tea" It came out so cute! Billy is entering art. He made the most beautiful pastel drawing of a fish this year in kindergarten. It won an honorable mention at the school art show. I framed it. He's also entering the house plant arrangement too. We didn't have any house plants for him, but, we did have some hen's and chicks. So yesterday we got a pair of his old sneakers, washed them, and filled them with hen's and chicks. They are so cute!! Little blue sketchers!! So adorable!! My neighbor saw them when she was walking her dog and asked if they were going to be at the plant swap...lol! I have to get a photo of them. Have a great day!! vina Here's a weird one...found this double gaillardia. It looks like a science experiment gone wrong, lol.

Stockergal, I used to think I couldn't tell the difference after it hits 100 degrees, but I have to say that in 2011 once we were hitting about 108-110 I could tell the difference pretty well, and on the days we were out fighting fires and the thermometer said 115 or 116, it was a whole different kind of heat----and that was away from the actual fire itself since we don't set up food and drinks too close to the active fire line. If we never hit a temperature of 115 degrees here ever again, that's okay with me. Amy, For me it was the summer of 1980, which was the hottest summer ever in Ft. Worth until 2011 rolled around. I had a little AMC hornet with no AC and I don't know how I survived the summer driving to work in it at 1 pm every afternoon. I had to wear street clothes while driving to work and then change into my work clothes after I got to work, or I would have been too hot and sweaty and my work clothes likely would have been dripping wet. I haven't had a vehicle with no AC since then. Stockergal, I love containers. At least with them your plants have a chance of thriving in the heat as long as you water regularly. I have a row of them along my garden fence line on the east side of the garden and another row of them along the eastern fence line of the dog yard. It helps shade the dog yard in the mornings because I grow a lot of tall plants in them. I agree it is too hot to weed at 7 am, which means it is too hot right now to weed period. This is how I lose control of the garden in July or August, but eventually I reclaim it once the temperatures start dropping a little. Dawn

Yikes! I am getting behind, and if I don't get caught up, I'll be left behind forever in summer (I can think of worse things). Cori Ann, how wonderful about your acceptance into your first choice of schools. Will you begin soon, or are there more classes to plow through like physics? I love your positive attitude, and I'm sure lots of success awaits you. Meanwhile, we'll all have some fall fun. Like a virtual Halloween party, maybe? I'm sure Jim can supply some gruesome photos! Vampire armadillos, perhaps? Jim, is that some kind of white filament growing under the bark of your Double Knockout rose? I just read on the Antique Rose Forum about oak root fungus in a rose, and the photo shows the white fungus filaments growing under the bark of the infected rose. I guess it can invade roses where it is wet. The thread is entitled Death of a Rose, and the OP was Rosefolly. I'm sorry I don't give a link, but I'm a computer illiterate old lady.....Your photos of Julia and MotH are beautiful. I keep saying you must grow more Julia with those marigolds. Carol, I was getting worried about you again, and am so glad you posted. Phooey on snow already. Our weather turned cold, windy, and wet several days ago, and it's really inhibited blooming and any ripening of cukes or tomatoes. Summer came to a crashing halt. I think the cold continued on up your way. Last year, summer and a warm fall just went on and on. We've had four days straight of light rain which is amazing here. Thank you for your nice rose compliment. How are your flowers and roses doing in the snow? I hope it melted promptly. Kate, I hope you'll be posting in the fall thread. I'm sorry you lost roses to the summer heat. And how are you doing yourself? Ready to plant all those replacement roses? I've got to do some tearing out and planting yet, and it's nearly October. I'll be doing this stuff on Christmas Eve if the weather doesn't let up.....As far as loading a lengthy thread--have you tried just going straight to the bottom of the thread using the "End" button? Some people have to hold down CTrl and End at the same time. I just punch End. Speaking of end, this is the end of this post, and it's onward to fall. See you all there. Diane

Farmgardener, I'm sorry you're having such a rough time with the garden this summer. It's this darned weather. Some years we just get to a point where you cannot water enough to keep the garden producing, and it sounds like your area is at that point now. (Mine is getting closer and closer to that point by the day.) There's no shame in walking away from the garden and waiting for better weather---either in the fall or next year. Jennifer, The chickens are fine. They are bored and they are aggravated with being held hostage in a nice climate-controlled area (and I don't care that they are aggravated because I want them safe from the extreme heat). I'm thinking we'll let them out tomorrow because our forecast high for tomorrow is only 106. There's only six chickens left, courtesy of the heavy predator population we've had the last two or three years. The predators get 1 or 2 chickens a week except when I lock them up in their coop/run and don't let them free-range. This is why I'm about to give up on having chickens. We have a much, much, much worse predator problem these last few years than we had when we moved here 20 years ago. The chickens get hot or bored or whatever and wander off into the woods, despite my efforts to stop them. They ignore me and just keep going, and if you try to pursue them, which is dangerous in snake season anyway, they just run deeper into the woods, which is more dangerous for them. Then, something gets them in the woods and we never see them again. If I didn't have these 6 locked up in the mudroom, we probably would have lost at least another one this week. I call these six the smart ones because now they stick close to the house when they're out, but I don't know if they're being smart and cautious or if it just has been too hot to roam around and get very far from the house. When these are gone, I doubt we'll get more. Losing them is hard to bear. If we ever do have chickens again, they won't be allowed to free-range. If chickens are never allowed to free-range and are always confined to a fenced chicken run, they're fine with that because they don't know what it is like to be free ranging. Once they've free-ranged, though, they hate being looked up permanently and it is stressful to them to be confined. So, I try to keep these as safe as possible while still allowing them to free-range, but I'm resigned to the fact that the bobcats or coyotes will get them eventually. We went many years with only losing a couple of year, but for the last couple of years it has been 1 or 2 a week. Jacob, You've had a very adventurous couple of days. I'm glad the garden held up to the hail, and glad the baseball-sized hail didn't fall at your place. My childhood home got hit by baseball-sized hail when I was about 20 or 21 years old, and by the time all the damage was repaired, my parents practically had a new house (and new cars). I'm envious of your cool weather. When we moved here, we thought we'd be able to sleep with the windows open in nice weather. Well, that didn't work out so well as the frogs made such a racket during mating season that you couldn't sleep at all. So, the windows stay closed now. Jen, That Boston terrier sounds very, um, energetic. I hope y'all survive the weekend. Nancy, I like gravel that has been taken over by grass (and/or weeds) just like Mike McGrath described. He's one of my favorite garden writers, and Organic Gardening magazine never was worth reading after he left his job as its' editor. You can have the appearance of a grassy lawn, but the ability to park on it no matter the weather. I'd like to gravel over our entire side yard that sits between the house and garage one of these days and then let the grass grow up through the gravel. The dense, compacted clay in this area holds puddles of water forever after it rains, turning into a lake when it rains a lot, so gravel on top of the clay would be a huge improvement. Kim, I agree with you. For the 3rd or 4th day in a row, we were over 100 degrees by noon. It might have been the same at your place out there west of us. This is ridiculous heat! I'm ready for a break, even though our break here still will include highs in the upper 90s. I bet 97 will feel fairly cool after so many days between 106-111. Tomorrow should be our last triple-digit temperature day for at least a week, if the forecasters are correct. I looked at the garden about an hour ago when I went out there to check on the plants in containers. Considering the excessive heat we've been having, it looks fairly decent. Not great. Not good. Not nearly as good as usual, but mostly still alive and likely to recover if the temperatures will drop down to normal or average July temperatures. Of course, August awaits, and our hottest weather usually occurs in the first half of August so it isn't like I think the garden's hard times are over. They aren't. Maybe, though, we'll at least get a few slightly cooler days. No chance of rain though. If the drought continues to deepen and worsen, though, all bets are off. Dawn