Heather, The trellis looks nice and sturdy. Carol, I'm glad you got the bean seeds in the ground. I have 7 types of bush beans in the ground--four types went in about a month ago and, if the weather doesn't get them, they are almost blooming size already. The three other types went in about 10 days ago and only have a couple of true leaves. I think 4 of the 7 are romano types--but in different colors. I have a pink one (Tanya's Pink Pod), a purple one (Purpuriat) and golden one and a green one and I don't remember the name of either without going and looking them up because my brain doesn't remember much of anything from a month ago. Of the three I planted more recently, I do remember that one of them is Red Swan, which is one of Robert Lobitz's crosses that involved a pinto bean and a green bean, and another is a white half-runner, which I spaced pretty widely cause they get kinda big. I hope to plant pole beans next week if the soil isn't too wet in the area where I want to put them. That will depend on how much rain falls here. My big production onion bed is in the Peter Rabbit Garden this year covered with hoops with bird netting to keep out digging critters. My other onion bed in the main garden has struggled with being too wet for too long, so I've been harvesting those as green onions for fresh eating for weeks now. I harvested in selected areas, leaving 'holes' in the densely-planted bed. I went back last week and plugged 13 tomato plants into that bed--mostly late-season producers like Mortgage Lifter and Phoenix and a few of the varieties from The Dwarf Project. In another month or so those plants will be a lot bigger, but by then I will have harvested all the onion plants close to the tomato plants. By the end of May, it is likely it will be only a tomato bed and not an onion-tomato bed. I felt slothful and lazy after reading how some of you had covered up your plants, so I went out last night and covered up the stock tank tub planter that has the 4 plants I planted in February. I had to use a ladder to attach shade cloth to the top of the cages. I also covered the cattle trough that has lettuce plants, a few beet plants for young beet greens, and 19 tiny tomato plants---most of them are Red Robin, Pixie Orange and Canary Yellow, but also Little Sun and a couple of others I haven't grown before. These all will stay small--maybe 18" tall and produce cherry-sized toms. Tim likes to be able to step right out the back door, walk a few feet and pick a handful of fresh cherry tomatoes for salad. (He isn't out in the garden all day like me, eating them right off the plant like they are candy!) Right now it looks a little crowded, but as lettuce plants come out, the tomatoes will have more room. Using all these creative planting techniques, I've been able to plant more tomatoes than usual. I counted my plants last night while I was out there, and I have 172 plants in the ground and 39 in containers. If the weather is halfway cooperative, I should be able to can all the tomatoes and salsa I want this summer, dehydrate gazillions of them, and have plenty to share with extended family and friends for fresh eating. I started a second round of tomato plants a couple of days before March ended. Those plants are only about 3" tall now but when they are bigger they will be plugged into the big garden wherever cool-season stuff is coming out, and some will go into containers. I had meant to start them earlier than I did, but got so caught up in all the early planting that I just didn't get around to it. With weather like this,having 4 flats of tiny tomatoes is kind of comforting. If the garden gets smashed, I have smaller, younger replacement tomatoes in addition to the big old backup plants in the greenhouse, which hopefully are destined for the Spring Fling. I have planted more veggies than usual in the space I have in the garden, but fewer flowers in a dedicated border on the southern edge by the driveway because I put 23 tomato plants in that border, with the flowers squeezed to either corner of that bed. There's other flowers scattered around in each veggie bed too. I still have room for all the pepper plants, some southern peas, pole beans, okra, squash (I have 7 plants out there already) and late corn, and maybe melons. It is likely I'll rototill a new area behind the barn for late corn and more squash and southern peas. I thought we'd have that done by now, but that area has been too wet to rototill since at least December. So, it sits in the back of my mind as the major item on my 'to do' list as soon as the soil is dry enough for it. Susan, If our weather is a smorgasborg, why can't we just say "no thanks" and hide our plates behind our back? I know we need weather, including rainy weather, but all this crazy weather sure does drive gardeners to the brink of insanity at times. Clearly our risk is lower down here in southcentral OK than it is in central OK and points northward, but I'm not letting down my guard at all. Dawn

From what I've read, most of the changes are of a User Interface nature. The under-the-hood stuff has been stable and efficient back to 7. Of course, we all know that it was just the UI area that caused Microsoft the nightmares that they're trying to put behind them. WIn 8 has been great to work with as far as my experience has gone. The infamous Start button problem became something most people found could be quickly and easily fixed. Smartphones have had useable voice recognition capabilities for many years. My five year old car has it for telephone use, and in my newest car I can control everything in the center part of the dashboard, except climate control. I've found that the novelty quickly wears off. Even with very capable voice comprehension software as is now available, it remains easier to not use it, in most cases.

When I'm being tailed too close I tap my break pedal just enough so the light goes on and they think I'm breaking. After a couple of times, they get the hint, but I love the window washer idea, will try that next time. One thing some drivers do that I just don't get is to ignore merge lanes. We have a lot of turning lanes that start out as two at the turn light, but after the turn, they eventually merge into one. Ideally, cars are supposed to alternate to form a single line, but instead a lot of folks here purposely speed up so the car from the other lane can't get in even though the lane is ending. Seriously? Where are they supposed to go? Over the curb? The same thing happens on the freeway too when there's an accident or road construction. It really irks me to no end.

I find spin out bags are great, but they do have their limitations. I can see from the list of trees that you are working with, that it is a challenging area. I was surprised to read that the tree roots had even gone through the bags! I can understand that the roots could go through the seams but through the bag---how dare they!!!! It's no fun removing hosta from spin out bags and finding the roots stuck to the bag. I remember McTavish saying that she would plant hosta in a pot and then placed it in a spin out bag. I wonder how that worked out?