Chandra, There are so many ways you can make gardening fun for kids and Seedmama listed several of my favorites. When Chris was little, my sister's son and daughter lived very close to us and they all spent lots of time together in our backyard, so I always tried to have interesting plants for them to enjoy. We used to make supersized bean teepees using 10' long poles, leaving a wide opening on one side to serve as a door. In addition to planting purple pole beans on it (just because kids love veggies that are different colors from the usual ones), we planted small gourds and mini-pumpkins like Jack-B-Little. One year, instead of planting a vining type of plant around the bean teepee, we planted tall indeterminate cherry tomato varieties like Sweet Million and tied the tomato plants to the teepee poles as they grew. Pumpkins are great for kids as are winter squash. If you scratch their names into the pumpkin skin while it is still somewhat small, the name grows as the pumpkin grows. We also planted the sunflower house, but with a fence around it to keep the deer away. I just rototilled up an area away from the main garden (to keep the morning glories from taking over too much) and when each sunflower was about two feet tall, we hammered a 6' tall stake into the ground beside it so we could stake the sunflowers as they grew. We planted the morning glory seed at the same time. I've also done it with Black-eyed Susan Vine with flowers that matched the color of the sunflowers, and with purple hyacinth bean vines. One year we did it with red, white and blue morning glories and another year we did it with cypress vine and cardinal climber vines. You also could use edible pole beans instead of morning glories. One year I used flat concrete stepping stones in the kid section of the garden and painted them with concrete paint from the craft store, numbering them to be used for hopscotch. Kids have always loved sunflowers and I always put some really tall sunflowers in an area away from the garden. If you sow the seed 2'-3' feet apart and use some of the taller types (I have used Kong and SunForest in recent years), the sunflowers create a forest for the children to play in. I also plant a border of the 2-3' tall sunflowers because kids get a big kick out of being taller than a sunflower. For many years after we moved here, Tim's best friend would bring his grandson over to visit the garden, and the young boy especially loved the lily pond with its water lilies, frogs, tadpoles and dragonflies, and he loved, loved, loved to search the watermelon bed for watermelons. I always planted small melons like Blacktail Mountain, Yellow Doll and Sugar Baby because they mature quickly compared to larger watermelons and because they were small enough that after we harvested one, he could carry it to the pickup truck himself. Another watermelon variety kids find fascinating is Moon and Stars. Kids have been fascinated with purple kohlrabi and white kohlrabi when I grew it. I think mainly because the kohlrabi plants just look so odd. Hollyhocks are fun to grow and you can make hollyhock dolls from the flowers. I liked single flowers instead of doubles for the dolls. There's a couple of great books by Sharon Lovejoy that include all sorts of gardening projects you can do with kids. One of them that I read long ago was called "Sunflower Houses" and another one was called "Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots". Now that she is a grandmother, she has some newer books with more kid projects in them. One year we planted a rainbow bed with flowers and veggies arranged in single-colored rows in the same order the colors are found in the rainbow. Finding green flowers was a challenge but there are a few, including Green Wizard Rudbeckia, Bells of Ireland and zinnia. I enjoyed that so much that after we moved here, for several years I had a similar rainbow pattern in my veggie garden with separate beds for each color of the rainbow. I've also done the same thing with flower plantings outside the fenced garden. We always planted dill, fennel and parsley for the swallowtails so the kids could watch the caterpillars eat and grow. Kids love oddball flowers that are different from what you see "everywhere", so we planted lots of amaranths and celosias, both the plumed types and the crested types. Two varieties that were especially popular with the kids were Elephant Head Amaranth and Love-Lies-Bleeding Amaranth, which comes in both a green and a red-flowered variety. They also loved the old-fashioned Amish Cockscombs that often had flower heads that were roughly 12" long and maybe 4 to 6" wide. My mom even grew that one for us when we were children. Don't forget night-blooming flowers. If you plant 4 o'clocks, the kids will be fascinated with how the blooms open at about the same time every day. We planted (and still do plant) moonflower vine (Ipomoea alba) for the evening blooms, and tall flowering nicotianas like N. sylvestris to attract hummingbird moths in the evenings. Kids of all ages from 9 months to 99 years love watching the hummingbird moths. We always planted flowers together in one area near the hummingbird feeder to attract the hummingbirds, including coral honeysuckle, cardinal climber, cypress vine, Scarlet O'Hara morning glories and red-flowered salvias and nasturtiums. With very small children who may accidentally destroy your regular garden, a very small garden of their own often keeps them busy and happy and gives them a place to dig and make a mess without tearing up your garden beds. For young children, a couple of window boxes placed on the ground give them lots of dirt to plant in, and you can put small carrots, radishes and small-flowered zinnias like Thumbalina in the window boxes. Some kids are fascinated by herbs and enjoy all the different scents of the various plants. If you plant a few mint plants of different kinds, you can teach the kids to collect mint leaves, bring them inside and wash them before making mint tea or just adding a few mint leaves to a glass of tea. Kids who visited my garden always seemed fascinated by blue flowers and I think that is because blue flowers are more rarely seen. For blue flowers, we always planted Heavenly Blue morning glories, several blue forms of salvia, bachelor buttons, scabiosa and borage. Chocolate-scented flowers like chocolate daisy and chocolate cosmos are fun for kids, and there are a lot more flowers with chocolate in their names nowadays, though often it is referring to dark-colored flowers and not necessarily to the scent of the flowers. Several years ago son married a young woman who had a very young daughter. Sadly, the marriage didn't last, but we still have the Peter Rabbit Garden that our then-stepdaughter Maddie, Tim and I planted together when she was two or three years old. It has a picket fence and raised beds, and many garden accents including a concrete rabbit statue and a birdbath with a rabbit as part of its base. We read a young child's version of the tale of Peter Rabbit getting into Farmer McGregor's garden, and then planted our little Peter Rabbit garden with plants described in the book, including peas and strawberries. Maddie loved "her" garden, but she wanted to do things a little differently. She wanted to leave the garden gate open at night so the rabbits could come inside her garden and eat. We compromised by closing the gate, but by putting out little piles of hen scratch and rabbit food for the wild rabbits on the outside of the garden fence. She took her job of feeding the rabbits seriously and went outside every evening when she was here so she could feed the rabbits. I had to promise her I would feed the rabbits every night when she wasn't at our house, and she always asked me "have you been feeding my rabbits?" as if they were her own pets and not the wild cottontails. Indeed, the cottontails wore out little rabbit paths coming from the pastures to eat at their little piles of feed for several years, and I still feed the rabbits in the winter and during drought, but I feed them far away from the house and garden. There are so very many ways that kids can enjoy gardening with you. As they get older, often their focus will change and will move away somewhat from the garden itself. Still, even when that happens, you can keep them involved in some form of gardening. For instance, many science fair projects can be done with plants. Our son was very interested in gardening until he was old enough to get his driver's license! After that, he generally just waved at me as he drove past the garden on his way someplace more exciting. lol When he was in high school, our garden became incredibly popular at one point with his friends because they had to make an insect collection. Because we were organic gardeners who had not tried to exterminate every bug in sight, it was easy to find enough insects to do the bug collection in one or two trips to the garden and many kids over the years, including Tim's co-workers' kids from the Dallas area, put together great insect collections from our garden and yard. As Chris got older, when friends of his who were girls came over to the house, they always oohed and aahed over the flowers, especially the sunflowers, and I think he got a kick out of that. Remember too that kids love all the little lizards, toads, frogs, etc. that are attracted to the garden to eat the bugs. We have a resident turtle that lives in the potato bed every year and eats potato bugs. Kids who visit the garden love to watch that turtle. I don't know if it is the same turtle, or a different turtle every year, but there's always a turtle on patrol for potato bugs. Really, I have found kids love everything about gardening because it is a way to get them outside playing and having adventures. We always had child-sized gardening tools, gloves and hats. We still have the little metal wheelbarrow I ordered for Chris from Johnny's Select Seeds (you couldn't find much gardening stuff like that for kids in the 1980s in local stores), and it must be about 20-25 years old now. I see similar wheelbarrow at feed stores now, but wonder if they'll last as long as his has. It never rusted out too much and still has its original tire and paint job. This year I am going to plant some sort of flower in that little wheelbarrow. Dawn

Hi alicia82, I just found this information, hopefully it will give you some insight. I found the article off of http://www.sialis.org/widows.htm (Great website by the way, this lady is an expert!) She says, "If one of the pair does disappear, it's possible that the remaining parent may find a new mate. That depends on how many unattached bluebirds there are in the area. Sometimes they find a new partner within hours, in a day, sometimes it takes weeks, sometimes it doesn't happen. A lone male may sing forlornly all day long. The new mate may or may not help care for the young. A new male may feed the existing female, or just stuff himself at a mealworm feeder."

My sister just called me with a similar problem with the phoebe nest on her deck. The first thing that came to my mind was the cowbird. I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this notorious brood parasite. Even though the cowbirds most common host is the yellow warbler, the brown-headed cowbird often targets Eastern phoebes for its host. I've actually seen female cowbirds egg-dump phoebe nests. It's an extremely fast process. Now before people have evil thoughts towards the brown-headed cowbird, I have to say this: it's not the cowbirds fault... Cowbirds evolved following roaming buffalo herds around, and therefore developed a breeding strategy (brood parasitism) that allowed them to do so. The cowbird used to be an uncommon species here in the northeast, but during the 17 and 1800s almost all forests were cut down for farmland. Since cowbirds are an open spaces/prairie species, this is the perfect habitat for them. They also like edge habitat (powerlines, forest edges etc.) So, I told my sister to keep watching the nest for a cowbird chick. The young, a week or two along, should be larger, louder and healthier by far than the others. It's more agressive behavior as a nestling makes it sure that it gets fed at the expense (often fatal) of the others. So if the young in a nest all look and sound the same, chances are it "cowbird-free."

I've made this salad and it's beautiful & dramatic, arranged on a large platter. It also tastes great. I usually make my own Greek salad dressing to sprinkle over the salad. If I were taking this to a party, I'd probaby pack up an unpeeled avocado and some of the other toppings and do the final arrangements on the salad when I arrived. I use fat free President's brand feta as it's not so salty and pungent. You can omit the anvchovies :) Ann Louis Pappas Famous Greek Salad From: Tampa Treasures Cookbook by The Junior League of Tampa This recipe comes from Louis Pappas Restaurant, family-owned and operated on Tarpon Springs' sponge docks since 1925. It's worth the time and trouble to make this festive salad for guests in your home. Serve it with bread as a complete lunch, or as a side salad with meat or seafood at dinner. This salad was featured on the cover of The Gasparilla Cookbook. Makes 4 main-dish servings Potato Salad 6 boiling potatoes 4 whole green onions, finely chopped 1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped 1/2 cup whole green onions, thinly sliced 1/2 cup mayonnaise 1 to 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar Salt to taste Greek Salad 1 medium head iceberg lettuce 3 cups potato salad 12 roka (Greek vegetable) leaves or 12 sprigs watercress 2 ripe tomatoes cut into 6 wedges each 1 cucumber, peeled and cut lengthwise into 8 fingers 1 avocado, peeled and cut in wedges Juice from 1/2 lemon 4 (3" square) portions feta cheese 1 green bell pepper, cut into 8 rings each 4 canned beet slices 4 large shrimp, cooked & peeled (I use more!) 4 anchovy filets 12 Greek olives 12 Greek Salonika peppers (from a jar) 4 to 8 radishes, cut into flowers 4 to 8 whole green onions 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar 1/2 cup olive oil Oregano (I use fresh) Make potato salad (makes 3 cups): Cook unpeeled potatoes in unsalted water until tender, about 20 minutes; cool until you can handle them. Peel potatoes; cut into chunks in large bowl. Sprinkle with vinegar and salt; add chopped green onions; toss. In small bowl combine parsley, sliced green onions, mayonnaise and salt. Add to potatoes; mix well. Line large platter with outside lettuce leaves; mound potato salad in center. Shred remaining lettuce; place on top of potato salad; top with roka or watercress. Place tomatoes around the outer edge, with a few on top. Place cucumber wedges between tomatoes. Sprinkle lemon juice on avocado to prevent browning. Add avocado. Arrange feta on top of salad; place green pepper rings, beets, shrimp and anchovies on top of feta. Place olives, Salonika peppers, radishes and green onions around the edge. Sprinkle with vinegar, then oil. Sprinkle oregano on top; serve at once. Serve with toasted garlic bread.