lavender

I'm betting squirrels!

It takes a 7 foot fence to keep deer out but there are a couple of tricks that we've used successfully. Warning! They aren't pretty! You can string a wire or netting above your fence. Be sure to mark it with plastic bags or something the deer can see. A single wire will usually keep them from jumping even if they can get between it and the top of the fence. Deer will also not jump when they are not sure of their landing. In a small fenced area you can use white buckets placed strategically. They won't usually jump if they see them. Deer are pretty stupid though so there is no telling what one of them will do. We had a buck jump down hill into the veggie garden once and couldn't preform the same feat uphill. Instead of jumping out at the lower end he took down the wire fence.

Commiserations! Deer do love sunflowers; so do bear but they go for the seeds and pull the stalks down. If you have the branching sunflowers they will come back. The old style single stalk ones, not so much. Daylily flowers are also a favorite of the deer. Groundhogs don't seem to bother them. I've never seen the Stella d'oro bothered but no reason why they shouldn't be eaten except maybe your spray. I have no proof but just watching the way things happen in the garden I suspect that the deer bite things off and let them fall to the ground before they eat them. If they taste funny they just let them lay. I've had this happen more than once but never with the day lilies. The only suggestion I can make is throw netting over them. The stellas will be back with no problem. Good luck on the sunflowers! PS. If the sunflowers were short enough this is characteristic behavior of squirrels. You can watch them bite off pine cones in the fall and let them drop to the ground. Some of the more demented ones practice on flowers.

I found the seed packet that someone gave me for broccoli raab or rapini. You nailed that one. It says " Single 6" long shoots are like small, lanky broccoli heads, no larger than a quarter, but with more intense tangy taste. Shoots and leaves are delicious, raw or cooked." Maybe I should have planted them but they looked like a poor excuse for broccoli. I might not be able to grow peppers but I've go bragging rights on broccoli.

Does the second one smell like an onion or garlic?

Count 65 days from the day you set the plant out. That should be fairly accurate. The first ripe tomato isn't going to be me!

We don't generally get tomatoes until the middle of August or later on Big Boy and other standard tomatoes. It depends on the type of tomato, how big they were when you put them in and how long they have been in. I have two packs of tomatoes here the Big Boy says 78 days to harvest and the Roma says 85-90 days till harvest. Much is dependant on weather but you won't probably see ripe tomatoes for quite some time, end of July the earliest and I've never had one then. I know people who get a few that early though. PS Here is an oportunity for all tomato growers to brag about how early they get those ripe ones. :c49:

I got the article finished last night and will post it as soon as the newsletter goes out. Thanks all for your help.

Interesting that you don't like the taste of the cherry tomatoes. My husband won't eat them and he won't say why. I quit planting them. The onions should take off now that we have had some rain. It was awfully dry there for awhile. I've noticed that my leeks grow much better when we water them. Onions don't have much of a root system so they can't go deep looking for water the way many plants do. They use the water stored in the bulb when it is dry so they don't grow much, just concentrate on staying alive.

I think there is one left. I used everything I could get my hands on in front of the garden across from Harley-Davidson. I have the pink form of bugle weed and chameleon plant that can be dug for a sunny area. Also a number of different kinds of sedum. My sweet woodruff was gorgeous this year but that needs some shade.

You have to be careful about clearance rack plants though. Lowe's takes pretty good care of them but in some instances they never really recover from lack of water and other stresses to their roots. They will appear to come back but are really too damaged to make it through the winter. I guess there is no way of knowing. It doesn't keep me from buying them though.

Don't you love Lowe's sales! We have a network going that if someone finds something good on sale they email me and I forward it to everyone else. I had a friend who stood guard over a bayberry for me once until I could get over there. It is growing nicely.

Yes, we were mostly talking about Lysimachias as in the yellow loosestrifes and the gooseneck loosestrifes. The purple one that clogs the water ways is a Lythrum. That is what I have on my porch that I must destroy. Do you notice how much of it you see around here anymore? I know of 3 sites and I'm sure there are many more.

You should be able to grow them from seed but you have to be careful to deadhead any plants you get. If they reseed themselves you wind up with a patch of the common pink garden columbine. When mine started to reseed themselves I thought it was great but didn't give a thought to the fact that they were hybrids. The pink are such good growers that they crowd everthing else out.

They are columbine. You are probably familiar with the wild red and yellow ones that grow around here. They are perennials although some of the more exotic ones will not make it through our harsh winters. I grew some McKenna hybrids from seed once and they lasted about 5 years.

Let me give you some gooseneck loosestrife! I put plastic over it last year and hit it with Round-up but it is coming back this year. Very attractive plant though. I've got some purple loosestrife like the one that clogs the water ways sitting on my porch in a pot. It is supposedly a domestic one called, I think Modern. Someone gave it to me and I was hoping it was safe. From what I read I had better figure out a way to kill it before I get into trouble with it. I hate to do it! Know what you mean about the columbine. They do mostly look like bells.

My little shed greenhouse was the best for growing from seed. I heated it with a kerosene heater so it didn't get as warm as the current one. The only problem was that I used it for house plants and kept the heater going all winter. This meant going out at 1 a.m. to put more fuel in. I used to do it in my bathrobe and a pair of rubber boots. Result: frostbitten toes. Ouch! Brian I pm'd you. No point in giving everyone a heart attack.

Got the bottles of ammonia out this year before the groundhogs started on the cole plants. Haven't lost one yet.......knock on wood. Had to replace about two dozen last year.

The blue is columbine. Gorgeous isn't it? See how the flowers are whorled around the stem in your picture? That is the way the flowers are on my purple leafed loosestrife. It is characteristic of the yellow loosestrifes. I can't see that Wendy's picture, can you?

It's beautiful! Does it come back every year? I've never had any luck with the blue ones and blue flowers are my favorite.

Ok, 4 or 5 petals. Primrose has 4, yellow loosestrife has 5. Generally speaking.

What was loosestrife? There was some purple liatris in that bed until the groundhog ate it. It looked sort of like purple loosestrife. Or do you mean that the yellow flowers are loosestrife? There is a yellow loosestrife, Lysmachia punctata. I have a purple leafed form of it but the flowers are much smaller than evening primrose. I've never seen the green leafed form in person (plant?). It is hard to tell from the pictures.

You're welcom! Let's play flower trivia. They reseed themselves like crazy and attract Japanese beetles. I dug up the plant that I had growing in the garden across from Harley-Davidson. It wasn't as pretty as yours and I couldn't stand the beetles.

Evening Primrose (Oenothera)

You want good fruit production in tomatoes and not a lot of leafy growth so steer clear of anything high in nitrogen. (N the first letter in the NPK analysis of the fertilizer.) The P, phosphorus, encourages fruit production. Most sources recommend 5-10-5 or 5-10-10 or multiples of those numbers. The higher the numbers the less you need but the proportions should stay the same.