nanners, I placed one order with those folks, well over 12 years ago, and vowed 'never again'. I did not get any of your aforementioned varieties, however. I did get 'Black Giant' mulberry, which is nothing more than a non-descript row-run M.alba seedling, producing bitter little fruits that are anything but giant - but they do ripen from red to black. It worked well as a diversion crop to draw birds away from the cherries and strawberries, but it's going bye-bye this year. I do have a buddy in NV who bought a number of figs from 'em and actually got some decent plants, though I don't know if he got Patrick's Supergiant - I know he had 'Mystery X', which he sent wood from one time. Another buddy, in NJ, bought one of the 'Cannonball' black walnut seedlings. Still hasn't borne nuts yet, so who knows - will seedlings of the Cannonball tree produce nuts that are as big - and are the nuts themselves really big, or do they just have a really thick husk on them? Then, even if the nuts are big, what's the kernel %? He sent me some scionwood from it a couple of years back, but who wants to graft an unproven seedling BW - especially one from an outfit who's just as likely to have sent you just a run-of-the-mill BW seedling as one that actually descended from the 'Cannonball' tree(if such an entity even exists!)? Cold-hardy bananas? I suspect they're just Musa basjoo. Hey, I've got one growing here that was sent to me by a friend who's got it growing in MI!

I am about to compost my Pineapple Upsidedown Cake. Every spring it gets bigger and bigger and shows all kinds of promiss, the it just seems to go limp. By the end of June it looks like it should be September if I gaged the seasons on PUSDC. Besides, even using its acronym it has more letters than June. I will be a defender of Ginko Craig. I have told this story in this forum often. So I will make it short. You can take GC, cut it up into single eye divisions and pot them, plant them the next spring, and the next year have a very nice compact variegated green with white margin, medium-small hosta that flowers profusely. How can one hate a hosta like that. I moved just one of about 50 I had propogated from 5 fall sale purchases I had in Arkansas to IL and it is lovely and maintains itself very nicely. Les

The most effective method of keeping most any unwanted animal out of the garden is a good, tight fence. For burrowing animals like the groundhog you will also need to put that fence barrier parallel to the ground out a distance, like 12 inches, to keep them from burrowing under the rest of the fence. I have seen these buggers climb fences although a loose top that causes them to fall back can deter them. An electric fence, installed so they make contact with the live wire and a grounding wire, can be an effective deterent also. Illinois, like Michigan, does have a law that prohibits unlicensed people from relocating unwwanted wildlife and the fines, if you are caught transporting wildlife without that license, is steep. Here is a link that might be useful: Electric Fence

I love puffed corn. I choke on regualr popcorn so this is great. I like the regular better then the cheese flavor. And it does make a great caramel corn, like the cheese doodles. Caramel Cheetos (Cheese Doodles) or puffed corn 2 cups light brown sugar 1 cup margarine - yes, for this one you must use margarine 1/2 cup light corn syrup 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1 - 21 oz. pkg. Cheetos� - crunchy kind or cheese doodles Mix sugar, margarine and corn syrup in pan. Bring to a boil. Boil 5 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat and add soda. Stir until light in color and foamy. Spray a roasting pan (deep 10 x 14) with Pam. Put Cheetos� in pan. Pour the mixture over Cheetos� and stir, coating each piece. Place in oven at 250 degrees. Bake for 1 hour stirring every 15 minutes. Immediately, pour onto wax paper, or cookie sheets, sprayed with Pam. (This is the hard part.) VERY QUICKLY spread out as thin as possible. If not quick and spread out as thin as possible, you will get a big hard glob. After about 5 minutes, pull/break these apart even more and loosen them from the wax paper. If you don't, you'll have wax paper stuck to them when you go to eat them. You will regret it if you don't double the batch as guests are going to demand MORE! You can bake batches together and add an extra 20 minutes to bake time. I do them separately because of having to work so quickly to keep them apart at the end. The one batch can almost get too hard while working with the other batch. I got this recipe from "Glenda" last year, and have made it numerous times, Love it!!