I've been a "raised bed" gardener for over 5 or more years now. Believe me, I feel your pain. However, I went to a bit of trouble after the first invasion - it took a little of my time - mostly, and a bit of money - to Home Depot. But - it has stood the test of time, and I now harvest food almost every day of the year from my little boxes. The pill bugs, snails and flying predators still take their toll, but the skunks, squirrels, cats, raccoons are now just a minor nuisance - elsewhere. I purchased some PVC water pipe - 1 inch, and fashioned cages to fit inside of my boxes. The only problem is that each corner needs an "adapter" which is a 3 sided piece that allows the pipe to slide into one side, because one part comes with threads (which pipe can't fit into). It sounds technical but you can see what it entails when you see the pieces. I cut the pipe so that the cages are about a foot tall, and made it so that it only fits one side of the box - which is about 6 ft. long. This way the cages are small enough to move easily from one box to another as needed, as once plants grow tall enough, the animals seem to avoid the area. Most of the time, they will invade when there is bare or sparsely planted soil. They seem to "get the message" after awhile, and avoid the boxes. I try to keep a cage handy, especially when planting a new area. The cages are covered with chicken wire - which I hate - but could also be covered with Remay cloth - it would also eliminate the flying pests - white butterfly and birds that like emerging bean and pea seedlings. This solution has worked for me over the years - as I live next to a large canyon with many predators - a fence is out of the question. I also put hardware cloth - galvanized wire mesh (Home Depot) nailed to the bottom of the box before putting in my planting soil. They are still working - preventing burrowing critters from invading from the bottom. The critters seem to "learn" that the boxes are not easy to invade after awhile - and will avoid them, so as the plants grow tall enough to make it difficult for them to penetrate, they will go elsewhere. I can then remove my cage and use it elsewhere. A little pre-planning - such as making all of the planters the same size, thus only needing one size cage to fit all of them, cuts down on the need to have many different size cages. Whee - this is rather long-winded, but perhaps you can glean something from my experiences. Bejay

vgkg, Bermuda doesn't seem to be that tough a weed here in central Florida. It's very persistant, but grows fairly slowly. I expect it doesn't like infertile sand, and perhaps it will be worse when my soil is improved. However, I did produce a pure stand of bermuda last fall. I decided to solarize a garden plot (for nematodes). All the plants died except for the bermuda, which seemed to really appreciate the "greenhouse." Perhaps if I had solarized in midsummer, I would have killed the top growth of the bermuda, but there is no way solarizing will get the deep rhizomes. I dug up the bermuda (just going down a fork-depth), mulched as you plan to, and planted. I see a few sprigs of bermuda in the garden, but it's no big deal. I kind of think that the luxurious growth of the bermuda under the plastic might have resulted in me getting more of the total plant when I dug it. I wonder about tilling. Can you dig with a fork? It seems tilling would result in gazillions of pieces of bermuda, all capable of producing a new plant. Can you start the cardboard mulch now? (Those moving boxes are awesome!) I don't know what your ratio of planting row to path is, but you might consider digging clean, relatively narrow, planting rows and wide, cardboard-covered, deeply mulched paths for next year. You might even use cardboard or newspaper to line the vertical "walls" of your planting rows. By the end of the year, the bermuda that has been completely covered in the paths should be severely weakened (I know the rhizomes can SURVIVE longer than a year.) You should then find it much easier to clean out wider growing rows in that mulched area. Sounds like you have a challenge! Sharon

Wow. I feel your pain. Such a disaster is hard on any gardener, but especially discouraging to a newbie. Your excellent video allows me to confirm your diagnosis of powdery mildew running rampant thru your garden, squash bug eggs & nymphs on leaves, and bacterial wilt spread by the cucumber beetles... Knowing your enemy is at least half the battle! Do not give in to despair and do not give up! The Gardener's Mantra is "There's always next year!" Meantime, visit your local farmers' markets to get the veggies your garden has failed to provide. Let me point out, before offering suggestions for next year's garden, that it would be helpful when you ask any garden question here to say what zone you are in since there are five (!) different zones in PA (I lived some years W of Philly, then E of Pittsburgh). If you are unsure, see http://www.growit.com/bin/USDAZoneMaps.exe?MyState=pa (You could add the zone and general geographic area or city by your GW username, as I have done.) Powdery mildew: the spores are everywhere, and the fungus proliferates during cool, moist nighttime conditions (which is why one should never water the lawn or garden after about 3:00 PM--give the leaves a chance to dry off before dark,--and always try to water the base of plants, not the foliage, at any time). A really healthy plant usually can withstand this at least for some time before succumbing. Always, when ordering seeds, it is wise to look for cultivars/varieties that are resistant to various diseases and purchase those. There also are organic fungicides that will prevent or control such diseases as black spot, powdery mildew, various blights, etc. Gardens Alive (with which I have no connection aside from that of customer) has a lot of good products, but so have other companies. Shop around on line as the advertising dollars of these product manufacturers are no match for the big chemical companies and so you won't find much yet in the big stores. Still, there are lots more organic products available locally than there were previously. (Not much at all when I began gardening organically over 40 years ago.) Your melons that are rotted on the end are a prime example of blossom end rot; on cucurbits generally due to alternating extremes of moisture -- water/drought. (Rather than me re-inventing the wheel & taking up extra space here, please look up terms you may not understand, like blossom end rot, in Gardenweb's glossary or other online source.) For now, pick off and compost affected fruits; they are simply using nutrients your plant could better spend elsewhere. Read on to learn of possible solution for the future. And yes--you are right again in noting that cucumber beetles are the vector for bacterial wilt--about which I am sorry to tell you NOTHING may be done once it has set in. Your vines are goners. But there are solutions; read on! But do not start spraying any chemical pesticides--or if you have, stop it!!! These kill honeybees as well as natural predators like tachnid flies, soldier beetles, parasitic nematodes, braconid wasps, lacewings, ladybugs, and others that will help in the battle against pest species. There are such things as bioinsecticides if you must spray, but read on... From what I see of your soil, you need LOTS more organic matter--compost, compost, compost! This would make for healthier plants that then would be more resistant to and be able to ward off attacks from pest insects and disease. In addition to adding nutrients to the soil, organic matter acts like a sponge, allowing the soil to absorb water and hold it for release as plants need it. You cannot have too much organic matter in your soil. (My raised beds are filled entirely with pure compost I purchased by the trailer load from our local municipal yard waste facility. No "top soil.") You need to use lots of MULCH. If you have home-made compost that is still not quite "finished," it makes an excellent mulch (use 1-2") to be added right after planting your seedlings or, if you direct-seeded, once the seeds are several inches high. After the soil has warmed up completely and the vines have just started to run, top that (the area under and around to either side of the plants at least 12h out) with lots of chopped leaves (saved from the previous autumn) or straw (NOT hay, which is full of weed seeds!), using 4-6" of that. This will provide 3 benefits: hold in soil moisture, keep weed seeds from germinating, and add more organic matter to the soil as it decays, and encourage the soil microorganisms and invertebrates. Take all the help you can get from Naturefs laborers! Some people may recommend using black plastic as mulch. Don't. It adds nothing to the soil, the soil cannot "breathe" (actually, the soil microorganisms die), no more moisture can get to the root systems, it will photo degrade, making a mess in the garden, the toxic chemicals released as the plastic degrades do not belong in the garden...etc., etc.. (Have you caught on yet that I am advising ONLY organic methods?) In addition to concentrating on building up soil fertility (and fall is an excellent time to amend soil (see GW's SOILS forum!) and the use of bioinsecticides, you also would have better luck with controlling insect pests by the early use of floating row cover (spun polyester fabric, widely available online and at larger nurseries; one brand is Reemay) over seedlings. Leave it on until female flowers appear (not just male flowers, which generally appear several days or more prior to the females) since bees will need to pollinate them. By then the plants should be strong enough to resist insects & disease to some extent. Also, again, read the descriptions of squash & cukes in the catalogs, looking for those that are parthenogenic (a ten-dollar botanist's term for plants that need not have a male partner to set fruit. ('Diva' is a cultivar I plant. Nice for slicing or pickling.) Except for a few minutes removal to pick your lovely cucumbers each day or so as they ripen you can leave the row cover on 24/7 to exclude beetles! You asked: "Is there any disease going to be leftover in the soil? Is there something I can do to eliminate any disease left in the soil so it is gone for next year?" The mildew spores are in the air, as I mentioned earlier; the spray I mentioned will help with that. The beetles spread bacterial wilt. The insects are what you want to get rid of. You should squash the squash bug eggs as soon as you see them. There also are organic products like cuke beetle traps and insecticidal oil sprays that smother insects & their eggs. Look for those on line, too. Most importantly, clean up all garden residues & compost it in a hot, active pile (easy to mak; check out the compost forum here or at any of several good composting websites) or else burn it to destroy over-wintering eggs or larvae. From Cornell: "Cucumbers and cantaloupe are susceptible to bacterial wilt and should be treated within 24 hours if plants along the edges are heavily damaged or have 5 or more beetles per plant. Following the first treatment, apply follow-up treatments only if there is at least one beetle per plant." Guess this is really long enough. Check with your Penn State cooperative extension office for more info. Sorry; once I get going I tend to ramble on. :-) Hope I helped a bit, even if only with ideas for next year. I do want to add that you did a great job on your trellises, and you did well to make slings for the growing melons. (Looks like maybe you have a good reference book, maybe Square Foot Gardening?). Also, putting boards under the ripening melons was good since they are not trellised. I am curious, though: what's with the hardware cloth (woven wire) I see lying on the ground? Best wishes, CK

RE: declawing . . .when my husband's cats started ruining everything (we had plenty of acceptable things for them to scratch), we talked to a cat clinic about declawing. We said we would abide by what they said regarding whether or not to do it. They said it as long as the pain management was good, it was fine. Our cats didn't change AT ALL. They were just as perfect as always. I've read plenty of sad stories on a cat forum I was on where cats where having behavioral issues . . .and they were not declawed. However, as a compromise, I now only adopt cats that are already declawed. I'd be willing to get one intact, but DH is not. It really limits your options this way, though. I would rather just walk into a shelter and pick out a friend vs. pick among the ones w/o claws (front). My friend, a vet, says if someone is going to declaw, she thinks it should be done early in life. She says cats can start with destructive behavior at any point, too. One of my friend's cats was like this-- she only started destroying things when she was about 9! Our cats have never had litterbox or behavior issues. Temperament seems to be key in that department, along with health.