badmonkey

I just got off of the phone with Dr. Smrekar. She seemed like a kind and knowledgeable person. She is sending a tally form to me and I will be ready to go bright and early on Jan 3rd. Thanks to all who posted information. I appreciate it.

Thanks. I will try to call her this week.

Can someone point me in the right direction to registar for the Christmas bird count? I have a busy, established bird feeder in my yard and would love to take part in the count. I did it many, many years ago in The Pittsburgh area and it was cool. Thanks!

I have used salt before and it worked. As mentioned, one of the problems is that it takes a long time for it to leave the soil which means that almost nothing will grow in the treated spot for a long time.

My bushes were loaded today with a variety of butterflies. It is about time!

Some butterflies finally arrived this week. There have been several flying around and feeding from my bushes but, there still aren't as many as in previous years.

My corn looks great. I have been planting Silver Queen for the last four years and it seems to get a little better every year! I use a hill & row method. I plant three plants per hill and the hills are in rows. I make sure to shovle lots of dirt around the base of the plants and tie them to posts in the rows when possible. A couple of years ago I had a great looing garden with lots of nice corn stalks loaded with developing ears and we had a storm. It knocked down almost all of my plants. They weren't only knocked down but they were twisted at the base which killed the plants.

I ate some more tonight. They taste great. There is a clear difference in taste between the tomatoes that I grow and those that I buy in grocery stores. I' m not sure why but, I always put my store bought tomatoes in the fridg and keep my garden tomatoes on a counter. They taste better warm.

At least my butterfly bushes look nice this year. *smile*

Two of my 36ish Butterfly bushes grew quickly this year and have been in bloom for a couple of weeks. The rest of the bushes should be in bloom within a week or so. I noticed that there aren't as many butterflies around this year compared to previous years. Anyone else notice a chnage? I am still getting about the same number of Hummingbird Moths and an increase in Hummingbirds at my butterfly bushes.

I switched most of my plants to Goliath plants thhis year and have been pleased so far. I have been picking and eating them for a little more than a week now. The tomatoes are meaty with few seeds. I haven't had any ripe ones on our Pounder plants yet but, they are moving along. My Granny Smith plants got a late start and now have tomatoes about the size of tennis balls now. I will wait a little longer and start picking the Granny Smith tomatoes. They are a green tomatoe that doesn't turn red. If you are into green tomatoes, I HIGHLY recommend Granny Smith. We have been growing them for years and they haven't let us down yet.

Most of my tomatoe plants are located inside a fenced in area and are growing tall fast. I do have a couple that are planted in other gardens and there are a couple of the plants inside the fence that have tops that can be reached from outside the fence. The deer trim those back every year. I have found that the ones with natural tops that haven't been chewed off by deer tend to produce better.

I can probably come up with something. I have a roll of screen (like the kind used in windows) laying around here somewhere. The squash leaves that have been eaten are in a different garden than the peppers. These two gardens are located on two different sides of my house and one can't be seen from the other. I know that Rabbits travel a bit and cover a lot of ground but from what I have seen during the evening, the rabbits seem to stay on one side of the house. I'm not sure why. Of course, they could switch sides after dark. I thought about covering the ground around the pepper plants with flour and then seeing what kinds of animal tracks show up in the flour.

I will give it a try. We already have Robins, Catbirds, Blue Jays and several other species of birds at the feeder but it is always nice to give them a treat!

Will do but, at least when I look from my porch I will see a decent looking tree (this year). *smile*