OK so I just read all I could find on feijoa... sounds promising but I'm worried that they ripen so late even in zone 8...I'm in zone 7 and I wonder if I'll lose a bunch of fruit in the fall. Also, I'd really love to know what I'm planting (meaning...will I like them!)...and I've never seen one in the markets around here. I wonder if anyone has ever seen them shipped? I suppose it's possible, since I had wild paw paws shipped to me from Ohio before I planted those. (oh yeah, I have paw paws too.) What do you think about hardy kiwi? I tasted those ONCE from Trader Joes... Any other suggestions? THANKS! Ann

Mystery Solved! I finally got around to cleaning up these beds this past weekend, hadn't cut last year's old stalks yet. None of these clumps is totally dead, I did finally begin to see growth on all of them, albeit a couple have just a handful of stalks, nothing like they were. The cause -- VOLES. Voles had chewed out a lot of the base of some of these grasses, leaving behind a fine debris. I found vole nests in a couple of the clumps. The way the voles did it, I couldn't tell from casual outside observation, but when I began getting into the clumps, it because instantly obvious what the problem was. They seemed to like to destroy the plant at the crown level where roots meet stalks, thus the lack of new growth in destroyed areas.

No, I haven't received it yet. I should in the next few days, though. I can't wait. I dread winter and I'm so ready for spring, so to pass the time I like to browse through books like that and do some T2T around here. Now that I know it's your favorite, I'm really excited to get it! I have an idea that I'm going to put into play with some spindles I've had for years in a box. I got them at a garage sale a few years back for $5 and left them sit because I wasn't sure what to do with them. I got some great ideas off of here, but I'm in need of some more trellises for all of the seeds I got from The Seed Exchange. So I'm going to take some scrap cedar wood we have and make ladders using the cedar as the sides and use the spindles as my rungs! I can't wait until they're done. The cedar is in my shed and there's so much snow in front of it, so I'm hoping it warms up here (PA) to melt the snow to get the wood out so I can cut it and get going! I think I might leave the table as is for now. You're right. It doesn't look bad. But painting WOULD be a whole lot easier! I've stripped many of things in my time. Even an old trunk that had glue all over it, not to mention all the canvas off of it. So how did you make that page of yours? I would love to have a "my stuff" page to post everything I've done. Now that my kids are getting older, I can now post pics of everything I've done over the last 15 years. :)) Nice talking to you! Alicia

I sure wish we could find out who this woman is. I like the idea of this sort of sale. When most people think about garage/yard sales, they think junk. I don't consider the things I have as junk, cause it's still in great shape and it's not trendy things like geese, ducks, etc. Colors are also current~no green/burgundy or blue/mauve. ;o)