Jonathan, it's been a month since your original post, and I was wondering how your fig trees are doing now, and if you did anything to help them recover. Do you think they will still make a crop later this summer? I'm also in Austin, and my two young Celeste figs were frozen back twice since fall. One is about 3 feet tall and the other about 2 feet tall, planted in early 2005 so they were not established. Up here in far NW Austin we had another light freeze after the second set of leaves came out. At least 2-6 inches of each branch tip died. There's new leaf growth coming from the side buds, but no fruit buds. The smaller fig plant is finally looking bouncy again, but the older one is not. I lost some other plants that had been around for years - it seems that the incredibly hot, dry September made them stressed, and when they started to recover in mid-October the result was a badly-timed growth spurt. Then the poor things were plunged into freezing temperatures at the beginning of November, a month earlier than usual. Then again, what's normal around here anyway! Annie

>>Konrad, so had the wasps had entered the bee hives and eaten the honey? I had thought that the honey bees would have been able to fight them off? Yes,..usually a strong hive can fight them off, this was a weak hive from a swarm and was building up, it was about a month after I hived them when it happened, bees starved, lots were heads down in empty cells. They had too much room, I should have pushed them into one box. Always something new and still learning,..never ending. Another weird thing this year, didn't get any carrots!..Seeds never germinated! Looks like I got some old seeds, didn't buy any this year, the ones I still had from who knows how long ago, ...they need a long season, didn't re-seeded because of it. Do you buy new seeds every year?

It's difficult for me to think of containers as needing less maintenance. I guess if you don't have a couple thousand of them then perhaps it could be true. But once you put something drought tolerant in the ground it really doesn't need any care after that... the only real hassle (unless it's larger shrubs/trees) is weeding. As far as tropicals... to me a lot of the lush and leafy stuff is a waste of time, espcially things like Cannas and bananas. They seem to demand a lot of water and fertilizer and even then sometimes fail to perform well in cooler summers. It's the drought tolerant exotic plants - not really tropicals - that I continue to appreciate and grow. I'm not quite done with this - it needs a little revision - but here's how my old garden looks after 12 degrees last winter. http://www.desertnorthwest.com/articles/freeze_08_10.html Getting back to the weather, I thought I'd pass along this splendid bit of information... Public Information Statement Statement as of 4:00 am PDT on November 4, 2010 ... Record for all time warmest November day in Seattle tied on Wednesday... The high temperature of 74 degrees on Wednesday tied for the warmest all time November day on record in Seattle. The other November 74 degree day was on November 4th 1949. Wednesday was only the fifth day ... including records at the federal building which go back to 1891... where the high reached into the 70s in November. The following is a summary of 70 degree days in November in Seattle. 1. 74 degrees 11/3/2010 2. 74 degrees 11/4/1949 3. 72 degrees 11/2/1970 federal building high was 72 4. 71 degrees 11/4/1980 5. 70 degrees 11/3/1970 federal building high was 73 When the federal building was the official weather record site for Seattle... 1891 to 1944... there was never a day in November with a high in the 70s. This past Summer... June 21st to September 21st... the high temperature at Seattle-Tacoma Airport was less than 74 degrees on 60 out of the 93 days... so almost two thirds of the days this Summer were not as warm as Wednesday. Out of the four years where a 70 degree day has occurred in Seattle in November three of the years... 2010... 1970 and 1949 are La Nina years. 1980 was a neutral year. It is interesting to note that the previous 74 degree day in 1949 was during a moderate to strong La Nina event. A moderate to strong La Nina event is predicted for this winter season. The 74 degree day in November 1949 was followed over two months later by the coldest month on record in Seattle... January 1950 where the average monthly temperature was 24.9 degrees ( 16 degrees below the current normal of 40.9 degrees ) and when the all time record low temperature was recorded ( January 31 1950 0 degrees ).

I have not tried them, because I didn't know if they were ripe. I agree, they're very pretty. I'll clip one of the white ones and try a tiny piece. I'll report back! OK, clipped some. while they looked white outside, I can tell that when fully ripe they're REALLY white. I'll let the others sit longer before clipping, if it doesn't frost. You can see the REALLY white ones in this bunch. I'm going to try one of those. I don't know whether to just bite off a little piece, cook it or what...