This thread is hilarious and informative at the same time! Thank you all for the laughs and the knowledge! My experience with fish emulsion goes like this. I’ve been growing bonsai for many years and have more than I want to talk about. Some are pretty old and my treasures. When we moved from the big city to the country, we of course brought every single plant and bonsai! We had four box trucks jammed full of plants and one for the house stuff. I carefully arranged each bonsai on their little stands so they’d all look just right even if we were the only ones that could see them. I started the repotting process soon thereafter and of course...used fish emulsion to give them all a boost. The next day, I go back to check on my “babies” and stood there in shock! Thinking the worst about some human vandalism or theft, I notice that each plant had been uprooted and holes had been dug in every pot. Little hand like prints and tracks are all over the place, I follow the trail of destruction to a boggy area near a creek. There lie the remains of several larger bonsai, the fish emulsion bottle and even the bucket! A few choice words later and some tears too, I gathered the survivors and repotted them. Most survived with some very interesting new shapes but I certainly learned my lesson. Fish emulsion is great stuff but never use it if you even suspect that you have raccoons.

(((Gandle))), I'm certain the harvest and frost are only a distraction, and that your mind and heart are really reacting to what's going on with your sister. I can only offer (trial-&-error-based) guidance on certain aspects of the harvest, and hope that it can give you peace that spills over into other aspects of your life. First, let me say I understand the abundance of green tomato thing. I recently found myself with 22 lbs of them when I had to do destroy one of my vines. There's a long story here that involves a little break down on my part, and an emergency consultation with Calliope (Thanks again, Suzy!), but I'm not ready to tell it yet. I did learn that green tomatoes cannot be peeled the way ripe tomatoes can be (blanching and dunking in ice water) and that any attempt to try otherwise is an exercise in frustration. If green tomatoes must be peeled, the easiest way is with a plain old veggie peeler. Also, they don't go through a manual food mill too well... but you probably already knew this since you have infinitely more experience than I in these matters. I can personally vouch for this recipe for Green Tomato Bread. I had no idea what they meant by "ground green tomatoes" so I peeled and seeded several, and gave them a quick chop in the food processor so they were still a little chunky. I also added a generous handful of chopped walnuts and golden raisins to the recipe. I made four loafs and they were very well received. I also used ground cloves because it sounded like the recipe was calling for whole cloves, and, well, that just sounded gross. Of course, in the process, I managed to spill a whole jar of ground cloves all over myself... it filled my all pockets and permeated my clothes. I was ready to cry. But it turns out Steve really likes the smell of cloves so it ended up working out OK for me. ;o) I'll be trying green tomato pie later tonight. If it turns out, I'll post the recipe I tried. I'm sorry about the frost thing. I'm not ready either.

I'm 2/3 set....well, sort of. I'm still working on the hand made item, but I found the cookbook yesterday. Like many of you, I had to get 2 of them, one for myself and one for my partner. I'm still puzzling over the local item. I've found a nice locally produce item, but I'm not sure about shipping it. I'm going to do some more research. I've thought of other things, but Texas is a big state, and I'm not sure if the other side of Texas counts as local. Unfortunately, where I live the primary locally produced products are McMansions. I know I can spend as much as I want, but I'm NOT spending THAT much! LOL. Besides, that would definately be hard to ship! Sally

No matter what level a person converses on, said conversation is bound to be over someone's head. The only people who resent direct questions are those who aren't here for the right reasons and can't answer because they're operating at beyond the limits of their knowledge. What moves me to want to help any individual is their level of enthusiasm and their desire to learn, not necessarily in that order. When people are serious about wanting to learn, they can express both that desire and their enthusiasm by asking questions and/or asking for clarification when something just isn't 'clicking'. When you want to learn, good people see it, and will never make you feel small so they can feel big. If they do, there is usually someone around to let them know that sort of behavior is boorish and uncalled for. Too, whenever I'm answering a question someone asked, I'm always talking to the entire forum, so I might be talking to neophytes and advanced gardeners at the same time. The more advanced don't need to ask for clarification, but I always hope those newer to gardening buck up and ask for clarification when there is ANYTHING they don't understand. I don't think we should be here to see who can be first to post or tally the most posts by the end of the day. I'd rather spend an hour making sure you understand something than leave a dozen poor posts that lack of qualification has rendered meaningless. Why bother? If you say something like, "I don't get it, but I want to", almost everyone that CAN, WILL be more than happy to see that you DO get it - I know I would be. When you think about it, the forum wouldn't be much of a draw if no one asked questions. Have a good weekend, and thanks for the kind words. Mike - I get a LOT of mail from the forum. What's said confirms that how I manage my time here makes a difference and is appreciated by all but a few. It's an unusual day that I don't get at least 15 questions from lurkers or people too embarrassed to ask their question(s) publicly. I answer as many as I can, but I'd rather spend time on the forums so more are exposed to the things I share. I guess what I'm getting at is, given the overwhelmingly positive responses I see daily, it's really difficult for someone to do or say anything negative on the forum that harshes my mellow. Thank you for the kind words, too. Al