Too late for that, Bill. I cleared a whole lot more of the pine branches and tried to raise up the holly but it was too heavy and there were branches in the way. The fallen holly was blocking the path so I then cut off about 4 or 5 feet of the top of the fallen holly but left 4 or 5 feet of the broken section. That gave me enough room to pass by. After more clearing of pine branches and huffing and puffing, I had my path open again. I was emboldened to try to raise the holly again now that it was lighter and not blocked, and I managed to raise it up straight and lash it to a major piece of the broken pine. I have no idea if the holly can heal that splinted portion but at least it has a chance, and maybe the intact leaves will be able to feed the roots for long enough to help root sprouting. It's a good thing I'm not a neat and tidy gardener. I have pieces of pine trees lying all over the place - maybe I can pass them off as decorative elements? Claire

Zookeeper....I was going through this thread and noticed your response to one of my earlier posts (I hardly get notifications anymore to threads I’ve participated in). You asked a question about what I would do differently in my build. At this point I would have a long list. I did go over a spattering of those things in my very long thread [Cannot procrastinate any longer...[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/cannot-procrastinate-any-longer-with-hardware-choice-dsvw-vd~5106472), it was in answer to another poster who was asking the same question (mike I believe was his name). I can’t for the life of me get all the comments of that thread to load, so I am unable to search for the spot where that diologue took place. When I find it I will post it (rather than try to recreate it). One little piece of advice I would give that has been repeated over and over on these forums regarding building is to find the right building lot with the correct exposure. This cannot be emphasized enough. If you’re into windows and light and a cheery interior, you do not want to purchase a piece of land that only allows you to place your house with the main living areas facing north! No matter how beautiful it is, resist the temptation. I have found that a southern exposure on the backside of the house (if the main living area is in the back) along with windows on the east and west sides of that same main living area will allow for the best (and continual) light throughout the entire day. I get morning sun streaming in the east side windows of the great room, then the midday sun through the south side windows, and then setting sun around the west side of that same living area (with some trees blocking some of that setting sun). It’s glorious (I love light!). No need for artificial light even on an overcast day and no need to turn on the lights until the sun goes down. When searching for land, I would look up its location wth an aerial view and if it didn’t fit my specifications for exposure, I would not even consider it (helps weed out a lot of land). Anyway, all that to say....be very picky about your lot!

Jinny I don't really know how Seville's grow over time but they get to a very quick jump start. I am growing mine in windows with out additional light and they are beating the pants off my kumquat seedlings with them under 16 hours of very bright lights. I plan to graft an NZL to my Seville sour orange and grow it outside against the south wall of my house 8 feet east of my NZL on C35. NZL on US897 Volunteer Pumpkin and lambsquarters share the bucket with the NZL that nearly died. The lambsquarters will be remove to another pot and the pumpkin will remain to serve as a dryness indicator. The cause of decline was cause by the container. I failed to notice that while the bucket had great side aeration hole it did not have any bottom holes. This year I decided to water heavily every week and use the vacuum chamber under the pot to draw excess water out and keep the moist soil aerated. With out the bottom holes the roots did not get the air and they rotted while all my other tree did great. Steve

So, fire pagers went off for a horrific wreck on the interstaten a few minutes ago, and my heart breaks for the families of those involved. I expect Tim will be out there for a few hours. Since we don't take Fire Rehab drinks/food to wrecks on the interstate....but I'm wide awake after Tim got up and left for the fire station.....I figured I might as well be here. Maybe now, in the quiet house in the very early morning hours, I can catch up. My dream would be to do so and then to fall back asleep, but falling back asleep is not something I'm good at doing. Jennifer, Thanks, and I was sleeping well until suddenly I wasn't. Still I actually do feel rested. Don't worry about the potatoes going in a tad late. You're doing fine. We can be so hard on ourselves when sometimes we ought to just celebrate the fact that we're managing to get the garden planted. Congrats on getting all your cool-season greens and brassicas in the ground. I planted some of mine last week, but have a lot more to do this week before I can claim victory and say I'm done. I 'think' the ground finally will be dry enough to plant them Monday or Tuesday, but only if we don't get a lot of rain today/tonight (and we shouldn't). I used a trowel to turn over the soil at first, and then a shovel to get deeper soil flipped over to the surface so the excessively wet mud can dry out some. Since we had a few very windy very warm days, that soil has dried out a lot the last 3 or 4 days. It is about time. Now, just watch for anything that wants to dine on your fresh green plants. Wild birds often attack my young lettuce seedlings with a vengeance, and in rainy springs, the pill bugs and sow bugs prowling the mulched beds require the use of Sluggo or Sluggo Plus to keep those little crustaceans from eating the brassicas and greens. Sowing definitely is a word....... Artichokes are gorgeous plants and each one is like a piece of sculpture in the garden. When I grow them, I like to put them in the northwestern corner of my garden where they are in morning sun until noon or 1 pm and then in dappled shade the rest of the day. They take up a huge amount of space, so plant accordingly. Since we have such a long growing season, I prefer to space most artichoke varieties 4-5' apart. Does yours have a variety name or was it just labeled generically as an artichoke? Rebecca, I do really like David's Garden Seeds. I always try to support small businesses in our region because regional seed suppliers have become so rare and we're lucky when we find one who carries the right varieties for our part of the country. I believe David's now has a brick-and-mortar store in San Antonio too. You did get a lot done! That's terrific. I'm just like your mom with spinach. I like it so much that no matter how much I plant and grow, it never is enough. Amy, Congrats on the front door opening and everything! : ) I can relate to not being able to take DH into a grocery store. Yesterday we stopped in at Central Market to get 2 things--Dr. Bronner's lavender soap and some fresh fruit for Lillie. I really just wanted her to see their amazing produce session (which did impress her with its huge variety, though she pronounced some fruit, like the Sumo oranges, too ugly to buy and eat). So, I was aiming for a quick walk-through. It didn't really happen. Our cart wasn't quite full (we had one of the small mini carts) but we bought a lot that wasn't on my mental list when we went into the store. Our downfall was the bakery area, which impressed Lillie even more than the produce section. Somehow we left the store with Lemon Ricotta cookies (blame that one on me), a loaf of sourdough bread, a cherry pie (Tim) and a Maine wild blueberry pie (Lillie). We consulted one another and decided that as long as they baked goods contained fruit, we were 'eating healthy', (grin) This always happens. If I run into a store alone with a list, I usually can come out with only what's on the list. I hoard cardboard too and everyone in this family, except the cats, know to leave my cardboard stash alone. Chris, being a great gardening enabler, often saves up his cardboard and brings it to me. I might be the only mom in American who is thrilled when her son brings her empty cardboard boxes. Rebecca, My back doesn't like 50-lb bags of anything. It really doesn't even tolerate 40-lb bags well any more. I've been hauling a lot of wheelbarrow loads of compost and mulch lately and my body really feels it. At this time of the year, I just cannot find a way around doing things that makes my body hurt, and know that I am not alone in this. I don't know what you can do to keep squirrels away. I don't remember if you tried sprinkling red cayenne pepper on the soil in your containers to keep them from digging in the soil last year. If not, that is worth a try. Did you try spraying your fruiting plants with Hot Pepper Wax? I would hope that would deter the squirrels but am not sure if it will. A smallish yappy dog like a rat terrier can help some people keep their garden free of small animals like squirrels and rats (and aren't squirrels really just rats with big fluffy tails?). However, with your Teenage Mutant Ninja Squirrels, I'm a bit worried they'd terrorize a smallish dog and possibly take it hostage and carry it away. For extra nitrogen, have you considered blood meal? It might attract buzzards (it does here) but it is a nice high-nitrogen organic product. For something with a significantly higher N amount, you'd have to get one of the pelleted, slow-release lawn fertilizers that is nitrogen only. Eileen, Collards are an old-fashioned southern staple that's certainly having their moment lately on cooking shows. I grow a lot of them some years, and less in other years. This year I have a lot. Jennifer, Ever since I saw that news story on the light ballast fire, I turn off our grow lights when we leave the house. It probably slows down the growth of the seedlings, but I don't care. It gives me peace of mind. Honestly, I don't think ballast fires are that common, but they do occasionally happen. Jacob, I hope you're having a nice visit with your grandparents. Our neighborhood was so very quiet when we moved here....still had a dirt road, not many neighbors, and a bridge north of us was being taken out and rebuilt so we had very little traffic for a couple of years. So, flash forward almost 20 years and now we have a barely-paved road (basically loads of gravel and tar poured on top of dirt road), a perfect bridge, a few more neighbors and tons, tons and tons of more traffic than I ever thought we'd have here on our roadway. We tried to move far enough out into the boondocks that growth wouldn't catch up with us, but it has. We aren't moving again. At least all our closest neighbors live on acreage, so new folks who move in still aren't too close to any of us. I'm not opposed to people, per se, but just prefer a quieter lifestyle. Livestock (cows, horses, goats, chickens, etc.) still drastically outnumber the people here, but there's a lot more human beings around here than there used to be. I'll try to ID the weeds on a separate post. This one is getting long and I don't want for it to suddenly disappear mysteriously, which sometimes happens on my computer. I don't know if it is the computer or GW, but I'd hate to lose this and have to start all over. Dawn