The good news is that after most of the summer without regular access to a computer, I am back online.

The lessons learned this year is if you don't have A LOT of sun, you won't get tomatoes. Out of the 8 plants I had, I got about 15 tomatoes, and 8 of them came after the frost, picked green and ripening as I write this. On this property, I have too many trees, too much shade, and no tomatoes.

The plan for the winter, 7 trees have got to go. I don't even know what these trees are, they grew wild on the fence line, they will be firewood. Already talked to the neighbor, as they hang over their lawn as well. After we have a good freeze and a little snow to protect the shrubs, they are going.

My upside down Lemon boy tomato was sheared off in one of the thunder storms earlier in the week. I plopped the 18" that broke off (more than half the plant) into some wet soil and I'm waiting to see if it takes off. I left the 10 inches or so left in the pail growing. Maybe we get something, maybe we don't. Time will tell.

An update...

On Monday the storm broke one in half as I stated above. Sad but true. On Saturday morning my cell phone was beeping, my weather update warned me at 4am high wind warning. OK, whatever. I get up, do my day, and yesterday evening looked at the tomato next to the one that was half there, all wilted. It had been broken completely off during that wind storm. GONE!! I broke it off the rest of the way and buried the end in some wet potting soil hoping for some magic roots, but wow, 2 broken off in a week. Not a good year for me in the tomato world.

I tried to ignore the obvious, and it was working for a while. It is starting to catch up with me. The place I have my pails hanging is too shaded for tomatoes. They are growing but I have large spindly plants now and no blossoms yet. It is what it is at this point. I have no where else to go with them. I think I will rig something up on the back of my new fence for next year and I want to cut down some of the 'weed' trees that grow wild in my yard. They have grown from the wind or from bird droppings and I don't know what they are anyway. They are messy and grow like weeks, get rotten, and drop branches on the house. It's just time to make them gone, at least the one clump by the road.

Looking at the positive side, I got some pictures of what we have now. Like I said, the tomatoes are spindly like they are searching for light. The cucumbers and squash out of the top are progressing, about to look for something to climb on.

Speaking of running, I decided that the climbers need something to climb on. In one of my previous incarnations, I had some commercial display grid 2 foot by 5 foot. I bought a few strong lag screws and hung them up. This will give the plants a place to run until they can safely reach the ground (should they need to run more).

Then, I briefly mentioned the new fence. I thought you would like some pictures of that. I am especially proud of the gate closing mechanism which on the benefit of geometry and an old door spring in the right place, closes automatically or if opened past perpendicular to the fence, stays open. It worked out much better than I expected.

Since I am drifting way off subject, I had some entries earlier this year about putting in a lilac bed. How about a couple of status pictures on that? Sure, why not.

That's my status and I'm sticking to it. Continue to enjoy your growing season.

_|I/V\ C.

Well, when I heard to expect a few mushrooms growing on the bales, I did not expect this...

This is a close up of the current batch of mushrooms. There have been 2 other crops of 2 other different species, and a couple of patches of a mold type thing that changed the color of the soil. That washed off with the watering.

Now I know that everyone says ignore the shrooms, it is a good sign the bale is converting properly. Fine, I get it. But 4 different 'crops', all of different variety? Whatever.

On the bad side, and possibly contributing to the shroom explosion, the spot I picked to put the bales is a but shady, maybe too shady. The carrots and beets are not going to get anywhere. A couple of Tomatoes look good, others not so much. The potatoes are starting good and strong, those will be interesting to see how they work out. I'll have to add potting soil in order to 'Hill' them I guess.

Well that's the update for now. Good luck and water that straw bale!

_+I/V\.

This is my photo of my second attempt at rooting some nice dwarf white lilacs to add to my screening fence. Approx 2 weeks, misting twice a day, used new growth after bloom, cut about an inch below the last leaves on the cutting, using rooting powder.

It is not lost hope, but it is not looking good.