Hi Bruce! You're right. I am in Love County. You can't actually see our place from I-35, but we are in the general vicinity of mile marker 9 or 10. So, geographically, you and I are just over a hop, skip and a jump away from one another's gardens. You can plant heat-lovers like more okra or black-eyed peas right now, or another crop of bush beans that would probably begin producing in early to mid-August. If you want to put in new pepper or tomato plants to produce in the fall, any time from now until late July is good for that. You could plant some of the pumpkins, like Jack Be Little or Lumina, that have relatively short maturity dates and have pumpkins in time for Halloween. It isn't too late for some of the bush-type watermelons like Sugar Baby. Or you can fill in that space with any kind of herb transplants that they still have in the garden center stores. I have herbs scattered around my garden to help lure in the beneficial insects. Do you want to have a full-fledged fall garden? If so, here's a link to planting dates. You'll notice that many fall crops have planting dates in mid-July. You have to baby them along sometimes, but you can grow lots of stuff for fall/early winter harvest. On some crops, like cabbage and broccoli, you will not have nearly as many insect problems on the fall crop as you might have on the spring crop. And, if you want to grow garlic, it is best when planted in the fall for a late spring or early summer harvest. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: fall planting dates

Carol, For me, the likely difference this year is both that the combination of rain and some irrigation kept the garden producing AND we've had very few grassfires at our end of the county, so I haven't been running all over feeding/hydrating firefighters. In a drier year, I wouldn't have a lot left to harvest by now, and that's assuming I wasn't running to fires and even had time to harvest and put food by. The bulk of my food preservation is usually in spring/early sumer when the broccoli, corn, potatoes, green beans, onions and tomatoes are in production big-time. Okra, peppers, melons and black-eyed peas are usually a bit later, and then from late July on, there usually isn't much to put up because I cook it and we eat it about as quickly as I harvest it. So, in August and September, I'm more likely to be harvesting and drying herbs or deadheading flowers/seed saving, etc. This year is just odd all around....everything was late. Most of the tomatoes had to be dealt with in July, although there's enough every week to put up a couple of quarts, eat all we want, and give a few away. The peppers, though, just keep coming. If the fall green beans, black-eyed peas, cucumbers and sweet corn do well, I'll have no complaints....the spring green beans and corn weren't that great in terms of quantity produced. Ilene, I think I am going to pull most of the squash and all of the melon plants today. They've had every pest and disease problem under the sun in August and aren't healthy enough to bother with at this point. I really miss having the guineas and the free-range chickens. My garden is completely full of grasshoppers, squash bugs, stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs and the dreaded spider mites. I haven't seen any lady bugs this week. I wonder where they went. At least pulling the melons and squash will leave me some space for cold-season plants. Game bird, Sorry to hear about the pesticide burn. I just won't spray hardly anything at all in my garden other than Spinosad, which is organic. I was going to spray it today, but it is rainy, so there's no point. I hate using any spray at all, even organic ones. My melons have really declined, so I am yanking them out today. I think their problem mostly is red spider mites and there is nothing much you can do about them (or, at least, nothing I'll spray in my garden). I need to get the cold season stuff in the ground ASAP now that we're not having 100-degree days any more. Seems like we had to wait forever for the August temperatures to break here. Gardening is always a learning experience, and sometimes I think I have to re-learn the same lessons over and over again. Most years, some things produce heavily and others don't, so this year has been that way for me. My usually reliable potatoes and onions both did poorly, apparently because they didn't appreciate receiving 18" of rain in 4 or 5 weeks. Everything else, except beans, has done well though. Still, I am glad we don't rely solely on the garden for our produce. I am hoping for a late first freeze so the fall plants have a chance to be as productive as the spring plants have been. Dawn

Posted by missmshell z4 Carthage,NY (My Page) on Tue, Apr 6, 10 at 9:23 Darrin, give you all the credit in the world. I have twin uncles with autism. When I was a kid my grandmother babysat me every day after school so I was with them a lot. Like mentioned before, there were good days and then there were bad ones. I remember that sometimes the smallest little things could set one of them off. Couple smart cookies they are tho! My grandmother can no longer take care of them so they live in group homes now and I dont get to see them much anymore. Sure miss em. Michelle,...Totally appreciate your emotional and moral support bunches!! Whoa, twin autistic uncles?! Now there's a sobering eye opener, as it were. Never heard of or even remotely considered twin autistics before! Moreover, to me, the concept verges on inconceivable. That said, not every autistic individual is like Roy. That's why the condition(?), anymore, is referred to as "Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)", aka "Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)," thereby addressing a wide range of perceptual, cognitive and otherwise sociobehaviorally debilitative possible combinations. Some individuals are "high functioning", some non-verbal,...some this, some that. Trouble is, all too often, when you try to explain what the deal is, all too many still seem to be locked into "Oh yeah,...like Rain Man," **shrug** Then, y'gotta go "Yesss,...but," which is actually good, in a way, because it is a way to enlighten those who are actually willing to listen. But, it can also be a bit tedious, and sometimes y'wonder if you actually got through, or if they were just playing be nice to it and it'll go away. **again - shrug** - Anyway, elsewise, with Roy, we've become fairly adept at anticipating what is-or-is-not likely to set him off (commands, demands and probing questions, mostly). Actually, I am generally better than Elly at finessing Roy into behaving properly and doing what needs to be done. Like your uncles, in many (sometimes sneaky) ways, Roy is indeed quite the "smart cookie"! Although we learned, long ago, never to underestimate his potential creative/cognitive capacity, Roy still surprises us at times! For one thing, he's totally wizard at playing video games! ========== Posted by lilangel181 zone 5 (lilangel181@aol.com) on Tue, Apr 6, 10 at 11:30 Oh Darrin, That is quite a plate-full! Hugs and all the support I can offer to you and your wife for everything yall do! Have you ever tried doing a weekend respite program? Where someone else looks after the child for an afternoon, or a day or even a weekend to give parents time to just relax. I need to turn off the computer now... apparently we're having a tornado watch/warning. I'm not worried... I grew up in tornado alley! ~Laura Laura,...Thanks uber muchly for your emotional support!! While respite service has been made available to us, and we seriously considered it, ultimately we chose to decline, for several...

Hi Silvia, so glad you found your way back :-) My mouth always gets watery and could devour most all of your posted pics! Looks like you captured the Sun's Gold for a real Sweet Treat in a celestial blue pleated plate! ;-) I'll have to raid my Santas so the grape can make it's last stand for a respectable picture to keep up with you for the moment ;-). The only nice thing about this cold here is that if the tomatoes are kept above freezing, they can last so long on the plants ... they don't have top be picked every day as long as they are protected from birds and squirrels (!!!) I bet your transplants are quite big by now, and that's a nice cherry tomato trick to have some munching maters to fill in the gap. I'd like to do that but everything is tied up and intertwined, and since I'm also working with seedlings each day. I'm afraid to clean up little by little with the mold spores that will go flying in my hair and clothes if I try to separate the plants. Suddenly I'm hungry! Cheer! PC