The internet is a wonderful tool and if you use it diligently will give you all the answers you need. I find it is well worthwhile researching where the plants you want to grow come from originally. If they are not from southern USA, locations with a similar climate will do best ie. Southern China or Japan. Plants from tropical climates will do well for a season but then die as the winter is too cold.. Plants which have a different rainfall pattern ie. Mediterranean (wet winter, dry summer) are also tricky, as they get diseased easily. As for containers, really anything that has the right amount of drainage will do. Plastic is good as it is easy to perforate and put in extra holes. Don't try and economize and use ordinary garden dirt for seedlings and young plants. Get (or make) some good quality compost. Good luck. Ian

Welcome to Garden Web, Maja! I live in NC, so can't really help you with your Florida-specific questions. However, I would suggest that you choose a zone from the link below to put after your user name (edit your member page) and put FL as well. Then people can see at a glance where you are gardening. http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/hzm-se1.html Also, there is a Florida forum which seems to be pretty active. You might get a quicker response if you post there. I've posted the link below. Your property sounds wonderful! Good luck and have fun with the landscaping. Carolinakate Here is a link that might be useful: Gardening in Florida

I started the weaning process at 10 1/2 months, and we stopped nursing at one year. At 10 1/2 months I started to introduce a small amount of cows milk (whole milk) with the expressed breastmilk that she got while at the sitters. I would still nurse her at home first thing in the morning, dinner time and at bedtime. Weekends I was nursing her for all feedings. So I also gradually got her to all sippy cup feedings during the day on the weekends so I was just nursing the morning, dinnertime, and bedtime, for all 7 days of the week. I then eliminated the dinnertime nursing, because that was the one she was not really nursing anyway. She was getting more and more playful. So that one was easy. Meanwhile, I was gradually increasing the ratio of cows milk in her sippy, while decreasing the amount of breastmilk until it was all cows milk. I then eliminated the morning nursing, and the bedtime nursing was the last to go. I thought she was going to freak about that one, but she was TOTALLY fine with it. It was ME that was freaked out!! (LOL) We just made sure we adjusted her routines so she would not miss it. For instance, at bedtime we replaced the nursing with a bedtime snack, and extra bedtime stories. I also did not have an engorgement problem when I stopped nursing, I believe because we did it so gradually. To specifically answer your question about should you worry about how much formula he is getting - I would say no. At that age, they are taking in less and less breastmilk/formula and taking in more and more food. Hope this helps. If any of my rambling did not make sense, just let me know. I would be glad to answer more questions about how it all worked for me.

For snail and slugs you have 2 choices: Walmart sells a bait that has worked pretty well for me especially since the box says its not affected by rain. I know the box is red and yellow and the large one was pretty cheap and lasted couple of years depending on area size. other choice is a good old-fashoined drinking party....beer in bottle caps and jar lids. Attracts them to drink but it either dehydrates them or kills by drowning cant remember. Maybe similar effect to salt?