jordanz We are in NE Zone 6. Below is the best pic from last weekend for the sweet corn. The weeks before I planted the corn we were getting rain once or twice a week. After the weekend I planted we didn't get but a sprinkle of rain for three weeks. I ran the soaker hoses the following weekend and at that time there was some corn popping up. The following weekend I had to replant so I have a two week spread going. You can see the difference in the height. If it wasn't for the lack of rain the corn would have been much further along as yours is. The corn I raise is Honey and Pearl SH2. H&P corn can be stubborn to get started but I have never tasted better sweet corn in my life. I'm glad to hear yours is doing well. Click on the link below (CORN) where I explained what I did last year with our corn if you didn't already see the discussion. BTW, I get my corn from twilley seed, coated and three day delivery. Those potato plants will end up over three feet high. I side tie them to keep them from falling over which extends the growing time, blight purposes and ease of spraying and tilling close to the row. I hammer in 5/8" x 4' steel rebar in the middle of the rows every 10'. I run twine down the side of each row and then run a piece of twine around the side twines, pull the two side twines together with the piece of twine and wrap and tie it up on the stake. I adjust the side twines up several times as the plants grow. Mom ran out of seed potatoes at the end of the upper row. She planted a few store bought baking potatoes but they never came up. From this pic on the 20th to the 27th pic at the top of this thread the plants are at the top of the center stakes which are out of the ground by nearly three feet. Thank you bluebirdie. I hope you enjoy the mom's garden pics. The property is 30 acres there and it's all pure country. Here is a link that might be useful: CORN

What you have are "rounds," which is what a garlic plant will produce if it doesn't have the resources to make a full divided bulb. As mild as the winter was, if you had significant top growth before a cold snap, it may have killed the tops, leaving the cloves with little resources to grow on. Or maybe the soil is extremely poor/sandy. Or they were planted too close. But what you said about them growing tops in the fall and then none in the spring makes me think they were planted too early. I would plant no sooner than mid October. That way they will establish roots but not too much of a top before cold weather hits. Also make sure to mulch them well with straw or leaves, and make sure there is plenty of organic matter in the soil. In the spring they will need adequate fertility and moisture to reach their full potential, but should be allowed to dry down a bit before harvesting. Hope this helps, Jim

If you can lift the entire clump w/o doing much damage to the roots, you may not even need to transplant the foliage. Whenever I have to lift a plant and remove all the dirt from it - YES - trim the foliage, but if you can lift a clump and plop it right down into another freshly dug hole, you shouldn't need to cut back.

mxk3 - the shed replaced the falling-down one that was here when we bought the house. We didn't want to affect the property survey so we built the new one on the same footprint as the old one. I would have liked to make It a bit bigger, but at least DH can stand upright in this one! Originally we painted it a blue-gray with white trim, but that made it stand out too much. So I decided to try to make it look like an evergreeen :-). I used light green on the trim/leading edges, medium green for the body, and darker green towards the centre - door, door trim, and window trim, trying to mimic the color variation on an evergreen affected by where light strikes it and where the paler new growth happens. I'd probably go one shade darker on the lightest color whoever it needs repainting, but we definitely are happy with how it tuned out. LOL DH is a cutie - with a bit less hair now :-) Camp. - nope, never did entrelac. I liked working with colors too. I used to make a lot of the Nordic ski sweaters with the Icelandic wool. I liked the minimal seams due to using round needles, and the heavy yarn knit up so fast! I could make one of those sweaters in just over a week, even when I was working. I was never a skier but the sweaters were nice warm barn sweaters for winter riding. I wasn't much into lacy or frilly either but did like patterns made from variation in the stitches - I'm not sure if there's a word for that; hopefully you know what I mean....