I personally think that anytime of the year is great for compost applications too. You may want to rake your lawn before you add your compost. Compost lasts longer than chemical fertilizers. The sulfates and nitrates wash way and deeper into the soil with every rain so you get an quick result as opposed to compost that lasts for years. ********************************************************** Fall fertilizing for lawns and shrubs begins in October... You will need aprox 4lbs of screened compost per every 100 square feet of lawn. The amount can be increased or decreased depending on the condition of lawn. ~Rodale & Staff Pg. 285-287. With compost, you should use it generously in your applications to yeaild the best results. ~Rodale & Staff Pg. 285-287. J.I. Rodale & Staff, The Complete Book of Composting, 1971 (Pennsylvania: Rodale Books, Inc.), 8. Here is a link that might be useful: Amazon.com

Tiger Dawn, I second spraying with a hot pepper tea (you can make your own) or pepper wax (available commercially) or a garlic tea (make your own or buy a commercially available garlic spray). Hot pepper and garlic repel many critters, and hot pepper in particular repels squirrels. Kaolin clay, sold as Surround, also repels many critters because it puts a filmy, dusty-looking clay powder on the surface of the plants, but I don't have problems with squirrels, so don't know if it works on them. I hope you have a good plan for the control of cucumber beetles, squash bugs, and squash vine borers, because with that many cucurbits, you're likely to see a lot of all of them and maybe pickleworms as well if they're a problem in your area. (I don't have pickleworms here, or at least haven't so far, knock on wood.) Some years I have grown several dozen varieties of cucurbits all in the same year, and it brought droves of the aforementioned pests in great numbers. I grow a lot less of each type of cucurbit now in an effort to keep the pest numbers manageable. Paula, I've found hot pepper works only if sprayed onto the seed as a liquid since sprinkling it in doesn't coat the seeds. You can buy bird seed that's been commercially sprayed and it is even better than the seed you spray yourself in terms of repelling squirrels. Squirrels don't bother us much in the summer (must be all the acres of trees are providing them with what they want) but will occasionally come into the chicken coop area in the winter looking for stray seed. I seldom see them at the bird feeders, and suspect the feeders are too close to the dogs for the squirrels to raid them (unless they're doing it at night). Dawn

now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.

Ah, Spring fever. Oh, Spring fever. Ugh, Spring fever. Spring fever showed up a looong time ago here. Hee hee hee. Collected a lot of dried out leaves and plants. Pruned all kinds of plants. Threw away about 75 bags of trash during the last 2 months or so. Got rid of a bunch of roses last month and began adding mulch, amendments and coffee grounds here and there. Will do the "real" ferts later though. I did not have much choice. Hydrangeas have leafed out. Some oakleaf hydrangeas did not loose their leaves at all and look like they are about to open leaf buds in a few weeks. Azaleas have bloomed. Flowering Quince bloomed starting in mid January and has now leafed out too. Carolina Jasmine is blooming and Smoke Trees are leafing out. One apple tree is flowers but theother variety is still sleeping.Irises can peaking out too. If temps take a dive, I may have to replace a bunch of these guys!!!! But this warm time has been what happened the last 3 years. I do not know if this is climate change but it sure is way warmer than in my previous 40+ years here so I hope I do not end up having to replace trees and bushes.