Mendocino, I love reading your reports, and would love to have another climate. This is our worst year ever. I can barely walk the dogs with my husband. The snow is still here, and there are so many areas of ice that I cannot walk well at all outside. York_rose, I am hoping that the snow has insulated my roses. That will be something at least. Greybird,we almost always have nice weather mixed with bad weather. Even when we had our power outages because of the ice storm, many of the days turned around and had temps in the 40's. Now, we just have temps in the 30's and very little sun. I was going to move some pots, and clean them out to prepare for the spring. I cannot even walk in my back yard since it is coated with snow that has frozen, and is a cake of ice. I hope your weather has given you a few nice days. Jeri, it is good to hear from you. I need to ask about caring for a hillside some day soon. Ours is washing out too fast, and I don't want a cliff in the back. Melissa, you are correct. To me fall is the worst since winter is coming. Now in just a few weeks we can think seriously about spring. I love my garden, but most important is to just get out of the house. I cannot even get into the dogs' yard to clean it us -- something needed to be done daily with three big dogs. Lavender Lass, 50" of snow??? It is good to put things in perspective. Zone 4 even sounds cold. I have been told that our warm winters are why my lilacs never bloomed. My grandmother also grew lilacs, and I tried a few times without success. They are beautiful. the_bustopher, what does your name mean? Have you considered just going out around your house and tossing salt? It is very dangerous to do almost anything in the snow if you are not "sure footed". Life with the snow was not so much of a problem in Indiana, but here, they almost wait for nature to take care of it. It does sound like the city ought to give your street better care. Lynn, it is good to hear from you. Nalabama, Alabama is not supposed to get that cold -- at least not in my mind's eye. Sherry, I could never forget about you sunny zone posters. I have really worried about my Bermuda roses. I also have Carnation, and two others. I got them because I thought they would be disease resistant, but I don't know how winter hardy they will be. I hope you enjoy your Florida weather. Saldut, I also hope you enjoy your great weather. I forgot to mention that our snow was also a blizzard. It was our first snow blizzard ever. Also our house is not built for cold weather. I don't think it is sealed as well as northern houses. My school starts tomorrow, and one good thing about a large school. I can walk. I always wear walking shoes, and intend to walk and walk after school. I have never gone for so long without exercise. I hope you all have a Happy New Year. We will, but my daughters have gone home now, so it is a little lonely. I spent every possible minute with them while they were here, and missed responding to your posts. Sammy

honalee, We love Shelties too. I love the names you gave them. How cute!! Right now, we have a male Sable Rough-coat Collie (Angus McColly), a large English Shepherd, black with sable (Sheppie) and a female Bluetick Coonhound (Bonnie Belle). Lots of fun and games on our place from them! All were adopted. We adopted the boys and Bonnie adopted us! :) My DH liked your pictures of your DH with the Shelties. We plan to go for smaller breeds eventually. He wants Shelties; I want Corgis. :) Our dogs are so big. In this tiny cottage, it is congested traffic 24/7. You literally have to step over the furry bodies to get from room to room. :) And when they all get excited and rowdy, watch out and grab hold of something to anchor yourself! :) All sweet pups though and very loyal. We sure enjoy them and love them. Our 12 remaining cats tolerate them, because "dogs are handy when you need a warm body to cuddle up with...so I guess they are good for something", or so the cats seem to regard the dogs :) I started Little Brother on Clindamyacin two days ago. He seems somewhat better, although still running a fever and feels cold. His stomach is very tender when touched. You have to lift him carefully or he cries out in pain. He is using the potty box and drinking a tiny bit of water. He acts like he is sick to his stomach, but is not vomiting anymore. That is good. The medicine is staying down him. He started making "biscuits" on his bed this morning and purring again. :) I rubbed a little bit of tuna broth on his gums and let him lick it off so he wouldn't get choked. Keeping him warm and comfy and giving him lots of loves. That's about all we can do. Thanks for the hugs and well wishes everyone. ~Annie

Bon, In a recent issue of Texas Gardener magazine, there was an article about Dixondale Farms and it said that DF grows onion plants for Bonnie Plants to sell. So, when a person buys Bonnie Plants'-labeled onions in a store, they may be buying onions raised at DF. (The article didn't say whether or not DF was the exclusive supplier for BP.) When I see BP plants in the big box stores, they often aren't labeled as far as variety goes, but whatever varieties they are, I am sure they'll grow well here if they are from DF. My only real complaint about the onions you buy at big box stores is that they often sit outdoors in the garden centers for weeks and weeks and can be incredibly dry by the time you buy them. So, if buying onion plants locally, it is best to buy them as soon as they arrive at the stores while they still are relatively fresh and green. You can hold them at home in a cool spot (I heel them in using either lava sand or plain sand in a shallow container) like down in the tornado shelter, and have held them that way before for at least 3 weeks before planting them. Growing onions from seed is not at all hard. It is just that they need to be started at a time when I am working on all the other projects that I tend to put off and ignore during the regular garden season, and I'm just not ready to start new gardening projects when I am catching up on all that stuff. I cannot spread myself too thin because when the winter fire season starts, if it is a bad year, there's not enough hours in the day. Dawn

The 2015 season was a different one for me this year. This is the 6th year I've grown tomatoes in my little backyard here in Tulsa. The first 4 years, I only grew in containers. For the 2014 season, I built two 4' X 10' raised beds, and also had a couple of containers. But I switched from 18 gal. plastic containers to 20 gal. Smart Pots. My strategy from my first year was to mostly grow one plant of 12-15 different varieties to try as many different ones as I could. 2015 was different for me in a couple of ways. First, I started growing from seed. And second, I decided to grow tomatoes that I already knew I liked, and to grow 2 plants each. I started seeds for Brandy Boy, Big Beef, Black Cherry, Yellow 1884 Pinkheart, Jaune Flamme, Break O'Day, and what I thought was Sun Sugar, and Super Sweet 100. Those last 2 ended up not being true to seed. I was bummed about this, as Sun Sugar is my favorite. Whatever seed I got that was supposed to be Sun Sugar was a small red cherry instead. It was decent, but not Sun Sugar. Whatever was supposed to be Super Sweet 100 seed, was instead a golf ball size red that was mealy and bland all season. I started my seeds on Feb. 14, and they did fantastic. I moved them out to my "temporary" greenhouse (8' x 8') around March 10. By the time I planted on April 8, most of my plants were 18-24" tall and thriving. I planted a little early for Tulsa. It helps being a Meteorologist and knowing what the likely weather will be for the next couple of weeks. ;-) My plants were thriving until the rains came......and came.....and came some more. We didn't have it as bad as Dawn did down south, but we still had way too much. I started getting the first ripening fruit on a few of them the week before Memorial Day. Jaune Flamme, Break O'Day and Yellow 1884 were the first to ripen. The other varieties started ripening the next week. All of the fruit that ripened before June 6th or so were very watery. We had that dry spell during the first couple of weeks of June, and that helped a lot. I also tried a little experiment with my cherries this year. I said I had 2 plants of all of my varieties, so I decided to do one of each cherry in the raised bed and one in a Smart Pot to see if there was a difference in taste. I can report that there was not a significant difference in taste for Black Cherry, not-Sun Sugar, and not-Super Sweet 100. They all tasted the same whether from the Smart pot or the bed. The only difference in the cherries was the Black Cherry in the Smart Pot succumbed to Gray Mold about 3 weeks quicker than the one in the raised bed. Like I'm sure most of you experienced, the disease pressure was much higher this year than normal, due to the heavy rain. I normally get Gray Mold on any of the Blacks I've tried. And I usually eventually get Early Blight to some degree on all the others. It was quite a bit faster this year. And to top it all off, around July 4th, my neighbor behind me decided to use Round Up all over his backyard to kill his bermuda and do some landscaping. My tomato plants did not like this one bit. They all died within a week. I was pretty mad at first, but luckily, they were mostly played out by then. So the loses weren't too bad. I didn't have too many fruit left. It would have been a different story if it was June 4, instead. I guess that's the risk you take when you garden in the middle of town. BRANDY BOY - This one was my only new variety. These did well overall, but I probably will not grow again. I know this sounds crazy, but I'm just not a huge fan of the Brandywine taste. Call me crazy, I know. I grew a Brandywine back in 2012 in a container and they all tasted watery and bland to me. And it got Early Blight quicker than others that year. On a whim, I decided to try Brandy Boy this year in the bed. Both plants produced about 20 good-sized beefsteaks. I still just wasn't crazy about the taste. If you like Brandywine, these may be worth a try. Definitely had better disease resistance than Brandywine, at least in my case. BIG BEEF - These did great for me, and I plan to always grow this one. The taste isn't "knock your socks off", but it's very good for a hybrid. And they produce like crazy. This was my second year growing it. Every year, each plant has pumped out at least 35 fruit. Most were in the 8-16 oz. range. And for what it's worth, these 2 plants were the last to die from the Round Up accident. BREAK O'DAY - This variety is probably my favorite pink. There's something about the "zing" in the flavor that my wife and I both really like. I've grown this one all 6 years and will continue. It's a little bit smaller plant (4'), but it pumps out the tomatoes. I've always had at least 30 from every plant. In 2012, I got over 60 from one plant before it finally gave out. BLACK CHERRY - Another staple that I've grown every year. I love this cherry tomato. Not much to say about this one. It's a very popular tomato, and it always lives up to its reputation for me. The only negative about these is they are susceptible to Gray Mold, typical for Black Tomatoes. I had hundreds of fruit from each plant before they died. Both plants were huge, as usual. YELLOW 1884 PINKHEART - This is a creation from The Tomatoman here in Tulsa, and I think it is only available through The Tomatoman's Daughter. It's another tomato that I grow every year. It typically produces 8-16 oz. yellow beefsteaks with pink in the middle when fully ripe. This is my favorite beefsteak. It's flavor is hard to describe, maybe creamy-sweet, almost buttery. I know it sounds weird, but it is oh so good. Every person I've given one to has commented on how good it tastes. The first few this year were watery, but after that, they were fantastic. I got about 25 from each plant. I had 2 huge fruit this year, too, which was new. One was 21.9 oz. and another was 20.7. Lisa (the Tomatoman's Daughter) said she'd never heard of ones that big. JAUNE FLAMME - This one is an orange, golf ball size tomato that is very juicy, sweet and tangy. I've grown this one every year. When I grew them in containers, they had quite a bit of blossom end rot. I haven't had that problem in the raised beds. These are early and very productive. I lost count on these this year, but I think each plant produced at least 75. I'm not going to go into the not-Sun Sugar and not-Super Sweet 100. I took a chance and ordered the not-Sun Sugar seed from Amazon. That was a mistake that I will not make again. The not-Super Sweet 100 seed actually came from Burpee. They emailed me about a month ago saying there was a mistake in their production of Super Sweet 100 seeds this year, and offered to send me new seeds early next year. I'll give those another try, but will likely not order from them again. I've got a Black Cherry, 4th of July OP, Jaune Flamme, Green Zebra, Break O'Day, Yellow 1884 PH, and Johnny Joe's going in the garden for Fall. I planted out on July 10. I've already had a couple ripen, and have several fruit growing on all of them. I had worms really bad on these in late July. I sprayed a couple of rounds of Bt, and haven't seen any since. Hopefully I'll get some good production before our first freeze. So overall, it was a decent year. It wasn't my best year for sure, but I guess it could have been worse. The rain was too much and lead to more disease than normal. And the Round Up incident lead to a premature end to my season. But I grew from seed for the first time this year, and successfully, I might add. So I'm going to say this season was a success. I look forward to seeing other reports, too. Lee