G.M., It is just the weather and there is not much you can do but wait for more sun and heat. I miss the sunshine. I don't miss the heat quite as much because I know that before long the heat will arrive and it will be miserable....and all the more miserable because we have had such a mild/cool April and May. Only this week has my garden begun to show some growth after just sitting there since the heavy rains began. I was so relieved that the soil had finally dried out enough to allow the roots to breathe and grow and now we have rain again...it is like being on a roller coaster....and this roller coaster ride is not fun! My morning glories, moonflowers, scarlet runner beans, black-eyed susan vines and purple hyacinth beans have finally begun to grow a little, but the growth is slow and not at all vigorous like it normally is. I suspect these plants will just crawl along at slow speed until our daytime highs start hitting the upper 80s to lower 90s and then they will explode. Your cardinal flower should do the same. I have some cardinal flower volunteers in the corn bed and they are only a couple of inches tall even though they have been there about a month. My sweet potato vines are slow to grow also, but then again they are heat lovers and they will go crazy once it warms up. I have put their containers on the concrete patio by the garage hoping the extra heat from the concrete will speed them up but I don't think it is working. They are making some new leaves, but they aren't gaining much length yet. They need the heat and sunshine too. You must feed your plants something they can take up quickly (I'll explain how I arrived at this conclusion in the next paragraph) so they will GROW which means some sort of water soluable food like Miracle Grow or Peters or whatever. If you want to do it organically use Alaska fish fertilizer from Wal-Mart or liquid seaweed. They will not make your plants show as much growth as Miracle Grow will, though. Any sort of slow release fertilizer is being leached out of the soil with all this rain and isn't helping the plants. Why feed the plants a water-soluable fertilizer? I worried and fretted over my veg garden for the last month as NOTHING was growing. I had put down all kinds of organic fertilizers and soil amendments before the heavy rains of course. After carefully studying my plants, their rate of growth (or non-growth actually), the appearance of their leaves, etc., I concluded that they were starving for nutrition which means either the heavy rains leached all the nutrients out of the soil OR the roots were too wet to take up the nutrients from the soil OR both. It took me a long time to reach this conclusion, because I know the soil has lots of compost, manure, greensand, lava sand and organic plant foods in it. However, the foliage and lack of plant growth was screaming 'nutrient deficiency' at me and I couldn't deny it. Even though I hate using Miracle Grow in the veggie garden because it often causes too much growth which leads to more disease/pests, I went ahead and fed the plants all-purpose Miracle Grow this week, except for the tomato plants which got Miracle Grow tomato food. I poured some food onto the root zones of each plant using a watering can so I could control how much each plant got. I foliar fed the foliage with a spray feeder. My plants responded by putting out new growth in about 36 to 48 hours. For me to break my own self-imposed no-Miracle-Grow rule, you know that I was feeling desperate to get the garden growing. I also gave Miracle Grow to the containerized plants and they needed it even more than those in the ground since they are watered often and that watering leaches out nutrients. You can put any kind of slow-release pelletized fertilizer on top of the soil in your containers and gently press it down into the soil surface. As you water it will dissolve and feed the plants. However, since containers are watered often, some of it will leach out and you will have to feed them periodically all summer. If really heavy rain falls, the pelletized fertilizers break down more quickly than they are supposed to under 'normal' conditions and you have to replace them more often. I have been applying Espoma plant food to my containers but I am not sure it is helping as much as it should. In a way I think weather that is too wet, too cool and too cloudy is much more challenging than weather that is too dry, too warm and too sunny. If your daylilies haven't been thinned in 3 or 4 years they may need to be divided. They don't bloom well if they are too crowded...but it could just be the weather. Does their foliage look a nice, healthy green? I'm with you on the squash. I have flowers galore and no fruit forming. I haven't even tried to hand-pollinate yet. I keep thinking that 'any day now' it will warm up and the plants will begin to function more normally. Well, any day now....but clearly not today! I can't remember a year with less sun....except maybe for May and June of 2004 when all we had was rain and clouds. There are a few plants that seem happy in spite of the weather. In our yard, the cannas and four o-clocks are doing really well and so are the daturas, verbena bonariensis, larkspur, poppies, begonias, and especially all the nasturtiums, which are blooming like mad and keeping the hummers buzzing about quite madly. My roses are putting out new leaves but haven't formed new buds yet. They don't look nearly as good as they did at this time last year....or last month! I have tomato plants in odd places too. Some volunteers came up near the chicken coop, probably from tomatoes fed to the chickens. I also have 3 or 4 plants in the compost pile. Usually I have pumpkins in the compost pile, but this year it is tomatoes. Your planters sound lovely. In these conditions I have found that plants in my containers are growing better than plants in the ground. It is probably because they have better drainage. I've never planted moss but your spike moss sounds lovely. I do have a slimey green moss growing in the gravel driveway, though, thanks to all the rain. Oh, and I know it seems counter-intuitive to feed a water-soluable fertilier to plants that are too wet, so consider this: your plants aren't taking up nutrients from the soil because (a) the rain has leached away the usable nutrients or (b) the water is saturating the roots and they can't take up anything but water. By giving them a water-soluable food that they can take up into their roots and through the foliage, you are giving them something they can absorb within 24 hours of being fed. Hopefully they can absorb the food before rain washes it out of the soil too. It IS counter-intuitive, but the new growth of my plants this week tells me that I gave them what they needed. Hang in there.....it won't rain forever, and as soon as the rain stops and the sun reappears, we'll have lots of lush growth which will then struggle to adjust to June's heat and sun. Dawn

Thanks for the reply. Im currently in Therapy 3 times a week. The specialist needed to work on my thumb doesnt accept BCBS and their the only option where im at. Was hoping to find some people here who have gone through tendon issues also

Wasn't there a thread last year about chicken feet? I thought the idea of doing anything with them was gross, and still do, but now I don't remember what anyone WAS doing with them. And yes, Annie, I'd give the blue crabs a try too. jude

Towns and villages west and northwest of Chicago have been hit hard by wedge tornados. The town of Fairdale, pop. 2200 is wiped out, with one confirmed death, and may have more. Crews are going door to door looking for victims and offering help. Strangers are helping farmers round up their livestock, or are looking for pets. I am well east of the storms path but we have been watcing the news and all the lighting the storm has generated. It was a wild night and we have been damn lucky that it missed the Ohare area. My friends in the area are all safe. Please, set up a plan for weather emergancies. Although we are on the outer edge of Chicago, we have a plan to get us and the dog into the basement. Candles, battery radio, comfy chairs, a first aid kit and a crate. Cell phone and flashlights were at the ready if we need to take cover.