Dawn, I guess I've learned from my experiences over the years. When I went to work with my current employer 37 plus years ago I was one of a wave of youngsters they were hiring. There were those with 30 plus years and those with 5 and under and no one in between. One of the older gentlemen I learned a lot of my trade from told me several times. As you get older you learn to slow down and work wiser. Then you don't redo as much. I'm not sure about the wiser part but I have slowed down. I used to question why we would pay extra sometimes a lot for a part. He always said you pay for quality. Most of the older gardeners around here in the 70's and 80's had Troy Bilt tillers. I used to think they were overpriced and bought the cheaper models. Now after I've spent many times the cost of a Troy Bilt in the 70's on cheaper models I have a 77 model Horse that is still going. As with most of those older companies when they were sold to larger companies and corporations the quality went down. I'm an auction junkie but don't go as often anymore. Only when there is something I feel I can use and can't live without. But have saved many dollars buying at auctions. The part that never ceases to amaze me it those who buy these nice pieces of equipment and then they set for years and maybe use them once or twice. It is obvious after this year the Tomato Queens have out distanced me. LOL. To sum it up as I get older I guess I get lazier and believe in letting a machine doing some work for me. Although I only tilled the leaves, additives and mulch in4-6 inches. Then as I set each WOW or bucket I'll take my all iron spading fork and loosen the soil in the area 10-12 inches down. I don't plan on adding anything to the holes this year as I plant. The tests show I don't need to. I will add something later. Jay

Game bird, This is the first year any of us have tried Candy Apple Red since it is the first year Dixondale has offered them, so I am curious to see how they do. Mine are about the same size as yours, but I haven't harvested yet, so they might get a bit larger. Of course, nothing in my garden is a good indicator this year because the 12" of rain that fell in one day at the end of April absolutely halted all apparent growth for 4 weeks or longer, so my entire garden is stunted compared to last year. Still, as long they they taste good, that's what matters. I intend to try them again next year and will hope for a more typical spring growing season so I'll know how they perform under "average" conditions. When Ruth Stout was trying to interest people in mulch gardening, she was sort of out there on her own. I sort of thought of her as "a lone voice crying in the wilderness". Now, of course, she looks positively phophetic During her time, the gardening fad was all the chemicals developed after WWII---chemical pesticides, chemical fertilizers, etc. She persevered and stuck to her guns about soil improvement and mulching, and she was right. I think Jay must have fantastic soil too, plus he works very, very hard. I cannot imagine trying to grow everything he grows in his semi-desert conditions. We are in our 11th year here and the areas that I've been improving and mulching for that time frame do not even look like the soil I started with, and that is despite repeated droughts that have baked the ground to a concrete-hard consistency over and over and over again. Except for the first 2 or 3 years when I amended heavily, all I've done is mulch, mulch, mulch. The difference in the soil is amazing. The formerly red clay that was so hard and sticky that you couldn't even break it up with a fork or mattock is now a milk chocolate brown colored sandy loam and has improved beyond my wildest dreams. Even in the pathways where I routinely mulch, the soil is so different from what we started with. Nowadays, I only improve soil by adding amendments the first year that I break up new ground. After that, it is all just stuff that's layered on top of the ground as mulch and time, Mother Nature and the earthworms do the rest. When we moved here, we had a tremendous issue with Cotton Root Rot, a soil-borne disease that affects thousands of different plants and folks who live here told me I'd never be able to overcome it and grow what I wanted to grow. After the first three years of soil amending, though, the CRR has never reared its ugly head again and I plant what I want in that soil, including many plants that you "cannot" grow if you have CRR. So, I think well-amended and well-enriched soil can overcome almost anything. Like you with the wood chips, I find that no matter how much mulch I put out, pile up and spread around, it is never enough and I always want more. We have to remember that "heat eats compost" and here in OK, it gobbles it up and breaks it down almost more quickly than we can add it. So, mulching is just a great way to keep replenishing what is being used up, and it keeps the soil so much cooler underneath the mulch which helps the plants too. Wheelbarrow time will build muscles and help give you a tan! Of course, the front end loaded was a mulch more efficient way to do it. Jay, I can relate! When the drought of 2005-2006 finally broke and we had a simply luscious summertime late afternoon thunderstorm, Tim and I sat out on the covered patio for 2 or 3 hours and watching it rain and listened to the thunder and watching the lightning. We also watched the frogs come out of "hiding" and play all over the yard and in the puddles. Later on, we spoke to several different neighbors and discovered they all were doing pretty much the same thing....watching the rain and the frogs. We all joked that it doesn't take much to entertain us here in Love County, but I'm telling you, we were so starved for rain at that point that nothing was more important than seeing that rain fall. I hope you get to enjoy every minute of the rain and hope it is falling at your mom's place too. I'm looking forward to hearing about your onion results. Except for being too dry, you've probably had the most "typical" or "average" weather of all of us. I don't know what the rain has done to everyone else's onions, but it almost killed mine. I was just looking at the garden earlier this week and marveling at how good it looks, considering that I thought the flooding rains might kill everything in it. I hope you're out playing or working in the rain, or at least spent some time sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee enjoying that strange phenomenon of liquid falling from the sky! Dawn

Carol, That Cluster Goliath looks amazing. It makes me tempted to go to Totally Tomatoes and order the whole Goliath line. It's been 6 or 7 years since I've grown a lot of Goliaths (one row of them will give you all the tomatoes you need). I grew regular Goliath and Bush Goliath as early tomatoes this spring, but gave them away to a friend when I ran out of space for them. I gave them to our friends still in 5-gallon pots (they needed to be potted up or transplanted and all my larger pots were full and so was my garden) and covered with fruit and they were harvesting tomatoes a couple of weeks later. They harvested the first one before it broke color (lol) because they were so excited to have fruit. They have sandy soil with nematodes and had just about given up on growing tomatoes so I may have 'converted' them into container growers with those Goliaths. You tomato addicts (OK, we tomato addicts) are now becoming addicted to peppers. One fun thing we could do next year for the swap is that everyone could pick a favorite variety or two to grow in quantity for the swap. Then everyone could bring 'their' chosen variety or varieties to the swap and trade with everyone else. Of course, everyone could bring other extra peppers too, but we'd know Carol was growing Variety A, and Lynn was growing Variety B, and so forth. Someone would have to be the Pepper Coordinator and keep a list of who was bringing what, but wouldn't it be fun? On another note, like tomatoes, peppers are perennial. I have a couple of plants that are now in their third year because I overwinter them in containers in the garage. We went down to about 6 degrees on a couple of nights, but I know the garage stayed somewhat warmer...maybe it briefly went down to 15 or 20 degees on those 6 degrees nights. Anyway, the Red Sweet Bell Pepper I overwintered from last year starting blooming in Jan. or Feb. and set a couple of early bell peppers that I harvested in April. Then it set more in March or April. Those peppers are now a gorgeous red and ready to pick. This is despite the fact that the overwintered plant lost its leaves and some tips of some branches froze several times on cold nights although it never completely froze and died. This fall, when pepper production drops, I'm going to dig up and pot a few and try overwintering them again in an effort to get an earlier pepper harvest. It works with hots, sweets and ornamentals....the ornamentals were the first ones I ever overwintered. Finally, if y'all want 'pepper trees' to go along with my tomato trees, you'd need to start them in January for a late April swap. They grow a lot slower than tomato plants. Carol, I've held peppers in cups forever some years waiting for the weather to warm up and they always take off just fine when they're finally in the ground even if they were root-bound in the pots. This year a lot of my peppers (both sweets and hots) had flowers and tiny fruit when I set them out into the garden, and I'm harvesting those peppers this week. It seems like this year the peppers grew faster than usual once I got them into the ground. It likely can be attributed to the July-like temperatures that arrived in southern OK in the last half of May. I'll be canning something.....likely hot peppers and plums (not together!) tomorrow, and maybe salsa by the end of the week. When the harvest starts rolling in, it sure gets busy around here. Dawn

I call them Dream Merchants. Really they are not selling a product but a dream. Went to one Amway party and the poor presenter spent an hour "explaining" to me that it was not about selling dreams. Alas, the first page in the Amway sales book says you have to "sell the dream". Pretty certain I ruined his Amway career. The scam is to sucker people into selling carp for you. You get them excited about being rich without having to actually work. Show a pyramid chart and talk about the hundred if not thousands of people that will soon be "working" for you. Stop to show some pictures of a tropical beach location. Continue by projecting huge wealth if thousands of people all sell this stuff for you everyday. End up by noting that some people deserve fabulous wealth and it can be theirs if only they cough up a hundred bucks to join your sales team. Not everyone wants to be wealthy so not everyone joins your team.... don't you want to be filthy stinking rich without working? I got sucked in by AFLAC. Fresh out of college and looking for a job anywhere. Being an "Insurance Agent" seems almost like a real job. I actually sold a few dozen policies before the reality set in. Just because you establish a customer does not mean that you own that account. No, your Regional Sales Manager has the right take over your accounts because you fail to sell them more insurance every month. Last sales meeting I was threatening to turn the RSM upside down and bounce him on his head. Had to quit before I gave into violent temptations. : ) lyra