I myself would not use the snow method. It works, but I worry if it all melts then it becomes super cold, you will have a problem. The roots can freeze, you just don't want them saturated in water when it happens. I would water the first of the month. A light watering too, not your normal soak it good watering. Enough to wet the surface only. If it looks super dry add water. It is hard to tell, and hard to say what is enough. Experience helps! Like when you overwinter bulbs indoors in say peat moss. You barely get them wet. Too wet and they rot, too dry and they dehydrate. If you use snow, don't pile it on, just coat the surface 1/2 inch. If that all melts, it's not too much. I have overwintered bulbs, but never plants. this is my first year too. Most of my blueberries are in ground. I harvested my last handful about a week ago.

Happy clematis in my experience are clematis with their roots plunged further down than I would want to dig. They root very deeply. Also, even though many clematis are pretty hardy, the problem with planters is one of lack of moisture or flooding and freezing in the winter. If you're really stuck on the idea of having a clematis growing into your walnut tree, the obvious candidate would be Sweet Autumn Clematis. It could be planted outside of the dripline of the tree and if trellised up until it could reach the branches of the walnut, then it would likely spread itself through the tree pretty effectively. The biggest problems you would face then is the clematis would compete with the tree for available light and each winter you would want to remove the previous year's growth (or your flowers will all end up at the very top of the walnut in just a couple years). ~Chills

My daughter saw black acorn squash on the vine the other day and is already begging for her favorite dish: Stuffed Acorn Squash: Cut acorn squash in half (be careful!!), scoop out seeds Stuff with a mounded scoop of filling, options below: - 1 tube of pork sausage fills 2 squash (4 halves). - we make our own with ground turkey. I add mace, nutmeg, cinnamon and a bit of sage. - I usually add 1/2 (or so) as much oatmeal as sausage because I like to stretch the meat. Also, the pork sausage is very rich and the oatmeal soaks up the grease. - My husband is a vegetarian. I mix Textured Soy Protein (bacon-bit-like dry meat substitute), an egg, and spices & flavorings to mimic the meat filling. - I like to stick walnuts or pecans on the top of the mounded meat filling - Alternately, you can omit the meat filling and just put equal amounts of butter, maple syrup, and brown sugar in the seed cavity. Bake in a hot oven until done (maybe 375-400 degrees for 1- 1 1/2 hrs, sorry, I cook in the old-fashioned way). Squash is done when a fork easily passes through the flesh...it's better to be overdone than underdone. Serve with maple syrup drizzled on the top - one half of a decent sized acorn squash is nearly a meal. The cooked halves freeze well, we generally fill the oven when we make squash. You can also bake the (cleaned) seeds sprinkled with seasoning of your choice...for about 5 minutes (you have to watch them, they burn fast) in the same temp oven. They make a nice snack and kids enjoy doing it. You could find a recipe for baked pumpkin seeds if you are interested. If you have not tried Spaghetti Squash - it's very good, no-or-low-carb, it's not exactly like spaghetti, but if you use your imagination, it's a good substitute for angel-hair pasta, and makes a nice casserole. You bake it in a very similar way and then scoop out the fibers after they are baked. You will want to put any squash on a cookie sheet to bake. Happy squash-baking! Kate

I plan to prune the centerpiece American persimmon at least a bit, while keeping it's natural shape. It'll also provide shade against the sun. The house faces almost due west with no shade on that side of the house. The persimmon tree will have some room to grow, while the other fruit trees in the front garden need some height restrictions placed on them through the open pruning techniques we're using. I hae considered pruning the persimmon into a semi-vase or partially open shape of some sort, which should keep the mature height somewhere well under 60 ft. Providing I live long enough to keep it pruned up at the proper intervals. LOL. Mulberry Knob, we are also looking for two paw-paws. If you happen to learn of the whereabouts of any small ones,lemme know. Chances are, it'll be better to go ahead and just buy them in order to get the size I want. Those are on the planting diagram for the front garden. They go in the northeast corner of the front garden, closer to the house. A bed is already prepared for them. I'll prune those the same way we're doing the rest of the fruit trees - a combination of open/vase and espalier techniques. Believe it or not, two spice bushes are on our planting diagram for the front garden, for exactly the reasons you've listed. They'll be planted on either side of the walkway on the north side of the garden, next to the long bed. Yeah, I'm after some of the oddball stuff that provides different nutrients while adding to the variety of flavors, colors and textures we'll have in the garden. All of those bushes and trees will also offer some noise mitigation for the day time trafic around here. It's wuiet at night and on the weekends, but during business hours, it can be hard to hear someone standing just a few feet away. That, or I'm gettin' old. One of the two. We still have the driveway bed to play with, too. The only thing we've planned for it are two fig trees. The rest of that bed is only three feet wide, but would work for espaliered trees, bushes, vines and such. The soil in that bed has already been amended enough for those types of plants. Most of the sassafras trees would go along our back fence somewhere. ...mebbe. That, or in the driveway bed. They're really an understory tree, if I remember my youthful woodland wanderings. They weren't really on the list, but then again, we haven't really planned anything for the back yard, either. Not even a bubble diagram. Jusrt, "Something, something' for fence beds and 'something, something' for the center of the yard" is as far as we've gotten. I sent you an email through your profile. Lemme know if you've recieved it, please.