I'm assuming maples don't drop a lot of junk other than in the fall? ===>>> you almost made me cry on that one .. i was laughing so hard .... seed drop in spring.. the dam-ned helicopters ... is a curse worthy of an 8th plague.. not to mention the 8 or 10 billion seedlings ... i suppose it might matter what kind of maple.. but all the generic ones i have dealt with are problematic at best .... maybe if you find a sterile one .... then you said: This patch of yard gets sun from about 10 am to 7pm and it so hot and dry that I have a hard time getting grass to live through the summer. again.. based on those i have dealt with ... most maple will not support vigorous grass under them .... and the pic below shows why.. they are extremely shallow rooted ... and in 20 years or so.. you will be bouncing over those roots with the lawn mower ... it is an understatement to say I HATE MAPLES ... lol.. like most peeps here will testify .. can i have an amen.. lol ... but that is because i garden under trees ... and maples and a few others are the bane of growing just about anything ... now.. whether or not these things will happen in your lifetime.. is the key ... as most of my problems are from mature trees that were on the property when i moved in .... whether you will be there is 20 to 40 years.. when the real problems start .... well that is for you to answer ... my fallback.. in the choice of trees... is ALWAYS oak ... once they get going.. they can grow 3 to 5 feet per year... just under what a maple can do .... and frankly.. no matter what tree you opt for.. there will be a downside ... acorns.. helicopters.. fruit.. nuts .... barren soil underneath .. etc .... so it will all come down to simply your best choice... as i doubt you will ever find the 'perfect' tree ... IMHO ... the key to clay is simply the planting procedure.. allowing them to get established.. and once they do. they are fully capable of putting their roots where they want them ... for the most part ... good luck ken

My wife and I have been feeding hummingbirds at our home for about 15 years. When we first started we used a commercially offered feed but we found it to be quite expensive so we started mixing our own solution in a 4:1 ratio water to sugar and adding no coloring. We live in Georgia so it's pretty warm here most of the year and we found that the solution would go off after a few days especially in the heat of our summers. One day we found ourselves out of solution. I am a bee keeper so we decided to use some solution I had for the bees which is a 1:1 ratio by volume. Well, two things happened. The hummingbirds love it and the sugar water can stay in the feeder for a very long time and not go off (sugar is a natural preservative). We've been doing this for over ten years and have observed no adverse effects to the birds. We have about 15 that come back year after year. Hope this is useful information!

I am growing White Whipporwill, Brown Whipporwill, and Piggott Family Heirloom cowpeas this year. All three make outstanding eating peas. These three varieties will be available from Sandhill next spring. I am shelling about 5 gallons of peas per night which produces between 2 and 3 quarts of dried peas. I had a single variant red plant among my White Whipporwills this year. I pulled up the plant to avoid contaminating the rest of my seed, but still managed to save about 300 seed. Next year I will grow them out and see if I can stabilize a "Red Whipporwill". The likely source of pollen that produced this variant plant is an old heirloom red pea that I have grown the last several years. It is an obvious cross since the peas have the whipporwill shape and color and the pods and plants have the Franklin Red color and vigor. I had a real problem with deer eating my peas the last several years. An electric fence is doing a nice job of controlling that problem this season. DarJones

The best cherry tomato I have found for hydro is Red Robin. Reason being is that it stays very small and makes it more manageable in a hydro system. I have grown Husky dwarf and Super Sweets in hydro as well. Even though the Husky is a dwarf it can get very large and super sweets just get huge. And they are all messy plants. When they start fruiting, leaves will die and drop and you will have to do some pruning. The Red Robin will produce, if properly cared for, a massive amount of tomatoes for it's size and they're tasty. Much better tasting than I had expected. Taste and shelf life will depend on how you manage them though. If you don't give them what they need, just like any tomato, they will end up waterlogged and flat tasting. Give them too much and they can get a metallic taste to them. It's much easier to screw up the taste of a hydro tomato than it is a soil-grown one in my experience. These are two Red Robin I have right now both going into their second production. There is still quite a bit of pruning you have to do with these guys but you can see they stay small making them perfect for home hydro system. These two plants provide us with more than enough tomatoes for eating. There is also the advantage that if you are using fluorescent that have less penetration than something like HID it's much easier to light the plants.