Carol, I suspect you're right in thinking the rain got the onions because 6" of rain in two separate rainfalls shortly after I planted onions and potatoes got almost of them in the main garden, but not in the Peter Rabbit garden, which is at a higher elevation. The damage to my garden has mostly stopped since I sprayed with Bt last week, but I continue to find and squish an enormous amount of cutworms wherever I go. I'll be bringing you an Indigo Rose, Ildi and Matt's Wild Cherry to the swap so save room for those. Jay, Your plants will be toasty warm tomorrow with a forecast like that. They actually lowered our forecast high for tomorrow from 87 to 85, which might help a bit with the lettuce and snap peas, but probably not enough. Susan, Juliet probably is not a true grape, but there's not necessarily a category it falls into easily, so when it first came out people didn't know what to call it---so they called it a grape. I've noticed some newer tomatoes with about the same size and shape being called cherry roma types, although if they aren't dry paste-types, then that seems like a misnomer as well. You have to understand that when Santa came out it was truly revolutionary and hugely popular because it tasted so good and people loved it so much. So, every tomato breeder in the world was trying to breed the next "Santa" and I think Juliet likely came out of those efforts, as did a bunch of other hybrids that have come and quickly gone because their skin was too thick or their flavor too poor. I haven't tasted a grepe yet that's as good as Santa, and think maybe I never will. It is kind of like SunGold---many have tried to breed the "next" SunGold, but haven't come up with one yet that equals it or surpasses it. When it happens, I think it will be with one of the non-commercial crosses being done by folks aiming for flavor, versus commercially-bred ones where flavor is only one of their goals. Carol, To me, Juliet is just a bigger version of Red Jelly Bean, so if you've grown Jelly Bean, just imagine it larger. I dislike the thick skin on Juliet and Jelly Bean, but if you're raising them for dehydrating, it is irrlevant because that toughens the skin anyway. Paula, That was too cold and too close for comfort. Carol, I can answer that one for my earth sister and hope she won't mind that I do so. Paula's seed-starting efforts were side-tracked by her father's death and all the resulting time she has spent dealing with his estate. I'm bringing her a nice big batch of varieties I selected out for her and put into larger containers so they could get a bit bigger before she puts them in the ground. We're hoping that with large transplants going into her garden at the tail end of the recommended planting dates, she'll still get tomatoes at about the same time as usual. Susan, It was chilly here this morning too--only 47, but tomorrow should be a lot better. I'm not excited about tomorrow's high temps. Dawn

You are in a great location and won't waste time getting to the attractions on your list. The metro is very safe and easy to navigate. 3 days in Paris has some excellent suggestions. You will see a few highlights and can plan another trip to see more in the future. Here's what I would want to see with my children: Eiffel Tower-yes, climb to the top. The view is spectacular Museum D'Orsay (used to be a train station) Notre Dame (stand on the star, which is the city center) Louxembourg Gardens (spectacular place for a picnic lunch). We stayed in that district once (I think it's the 5th.) We enjoyed Sacre Coeur. Loved the Montmartre area. Full of street artists and lovely cafe's. Many people have written about how to hit the highlights of Paris. Do you watch the travel channel? Rick Steve's has an excellent show and also has books. On our first trip I took his Paris book out of the library to help plan our 5 days. https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/read/articles/paris-itinerary One bit of advice: when entering a store or restaurant greet the staff with "Bon Jour" and smile. Almost everyone there speaks English, so if you struggle with your French they will most likely speak English. The French get a bad rap as being unfriendly. I did not find that to be true. As long as you show them respect, acknowledge them and ask for help, you will get along just fine. I love to plan vacations and then sit back and enjoy as it plays out. Plan on doing LOTS of walking and eating! Enjoy!

I consider this forum to be a community - at least that was how it started out. It is certainly not meant to be as narrowly defined as TripAdvisor, which is larger and varied enough to have many specific subforums. Gardenweb also has a travel forum, but it has very few posts, and so it is rather pointless to expect to get much information there. We used to have a dedicated "conversations" section in this forum, but it did not survive the transition from Gardenweb to Houzz, even though many people still wanted it. Since we no longer have that section and many of us still feel like a community, we occasionally have O/T threads - none of which are meant to offend. As for Alitatlia, I will say that I had a very good experience with that airline, but that was two years ago, and I would think that you would prefer to read more recent reviews, since the airline has experienced labor problems lately. I hope it survives, one way or another, as I intend to go back to Italy in the fairly near future, and it had the only non-stop flights from LAX to Rome. I posted the question on this forum because I am familiar with many people who regularly post here, I value their opinions, and I know that many have been to Italy in the past. If I post on TripAdvisor, I have to rely on the kindness of strangers, but I have gotten good advice there as well, especially for Fiji, and I learned about the Fiji forums on TripAdvisor on this forum. By the way, I did a Google search for Alitalia and did not find this thread or forum at all, and so I'm not sure how you found this!

Sabbath, our overnight ferry was Silja Lines. My recollection was that it was nice. I would think that Viking ought to be very nice! Here are the things that I remember: It was mid-July and it never really got dark. At one point in the later part of the evening, we could see the sun nearly setting on one side of the ship and the moon rising on the other side. It was mid-July and it was cold! DH and I thought it would be great to have coffee on the deck before breakfast. We opened the door, got slammed by a cold wind, and went back inside. The speed of the ship combined with the water temperature made it very chilly. It was a smooth trip. Although you cross the Baltic Sea, you are never really out in wide-open water like the Atlantic or Pacific. I had no trouble sleeping. The funniest part of that trip, which has no bearing on your trip, was my daughter hitting DH up for money for the video machines. We were at dinner. She finished and wanted to go play the video machines. DH would give her a bit of money and soon she’d be back for more. He’d give her a little more. This went on for a while until she turned up with money to give him! Unbeknownst to us, she was playing the slot machines and finally hit a small winner! She was 11! Bon Voyage!