Tom, I was not able to find the buttercup variety that we like. Hopefully I can still find some around here.

Linda, sorry about the plants but I know how you feel. I had some taller asiatic lilies that I had carefully staked up one year. There were about 6 different varieties that I had tied up each between two stakes. A couple of days later, I thought they looked a little limp, and sure enough, the rabbits had snipped every one of them off about 3inches above the ground. They were each swinging between the two stakes. Now it is a little funny, but when it happened, I was just livid.

Karen---I've lost so much stuff to rabbits it's not even funny. I usually end up with just lily stalks (all of the leaves stripped, or just the stalks cut off at the base). I've lost dozens of newly planted perennials that were chewed off at the base just a day or two after planting. Sigh........I know what you mean about being livid. But, what can you do? I've tried garlic, blood meal, etc. Unless you do it every day, it just gets washed away. It does make me mad to lose a hundred dollars or more of plants to rabbits every year.

Thankfully, my fall garden is put to bed. Garlic is planted, leeks and onions have been harvested; I have some plants ready to go into cold frames. Strawberries will be cut back and mulched after the first frost. I have some herbs brought indoors to overwinter, and I've started some bok choy, basil, and tomotoes that I'm growing hydroponically.

We leave on vacation on Saturday--as far as I'm concerned, winter can come at any time and I'm ready.

Linda, please keep us posted on how your hydroponic plantings do, that's very interesting!!

I made 6-1/2 quarts of tomato juice today -- seems like an awful lot of work for a gallon and a half of juice! But I'm very happy that, after wondering if I'd ever get ANY ripe tomatoes, I actually have pretty much done everything I wanted to with them (salsa, tomato sauce, tomato juice, BLTs, gave away a bunch of fresh little "Cupids," etc.) Now I just need a couple of days of sunshine and dry weather to get a few things taken care of outside!! Every day the Weather Channel predicts the next 5 or 6 days will be sunny and dry, then tomorrow comes and it's again drizzly and gloomy but "the next 5-6 days will be sunny" etc, etc. I think they're just teasing us!!

Glenn means my garden Bearded Dragons.


I also have two of these dirty big lizards at the moment coming through (Lace Monitor Lizards), which are big trouble for baby birds.


I suppose it is a mixed blessing they do not eat my tomatoes or strawberries.

Linda, do you use milorganite. If I get that down early in the spring, it keeps the deer and rabbits away. I keep my fingers crossed that it keeps working because it is so easy to do. Last year I got lazy and didn't get out there soon enough, so the deer got about half of my asiatic lilues. Never again!!!

Have fun on your trip.

Glen, that's so cool. So glad to see them in their natural habitat. And to think that they'd stay in your garden like that! Only one of mine would actually stay with me the others were always off trying to find bugs to eat and a rock to sun on. I used to take mine to the beach with me but then the seagulls were giving them the you look tasty eye. Never tried monitors but heard they are a great lizard to have as well. I just never had the space for them or heart to give them the 'big prey' food. Always felt bad for the pinky mice I had to give to my beardies. I'm surprised they don't eat your garden though? Mine were omnivoures I'd give them a salad everyday normally of kale and squash?

Watered my small fall garden today. Brassica looks great. Turnips, radishes, mustard and some lettuce are up already! Strawberries still a bit droopy but I'm sure they will perk up soon. We are getting straw on Friday so I'll mulch everything heavily then. And even though it's not the "proper" time, I am transplanting my raspberries. That is the only area still with tall grass, hiding place for the voles. Otherwise I haven's seen one in the garden since we mowed and tilled.

Glen, that monitor lizard looks quite ferocious!!

Yes, you right, Scurtis, they do like their veggies. A friend cuts hibiscus blooms and throws them to the lizards. They love them. I have been meaning to try.

Sandy, I have only caught a smallish one in my life and that was enough. I was raked on the arms and body quite extensively. A very large one would be too strong.

Dang Glen! I wouldn't try to take on a wild one! I know though, that if you get one from a good breeder that handles them from a young age and you keep on handling them, then even the big ferocious monitors are gentle and tame. Maybe there's some cute babies you can find around and raise it? That's cool that your neighbor feeds them hibiscus blooms I bet mine would have loved that too.

Here's a pic of me with my male he was the sweetest little lizard I've ever seen.

Gleni said:Sandy, I have only caught a smallish one in my life and that was enough. I was raked on the arms and body quite extensively. A very large one would be too strong.

Yikes! (or maybe, "Crikey!" -- is that actually Australia-speak, Glen?)

Wow--seeing any kind of lizard (or snake) in my garden would send me running the other direction as quickly as possible

Karen--I haven't tried Milorganite, but will certainly consider it for next spring. Blood meal/red pepper work but it has to keep being reapplied after each rain or watering. Does the milorganite last longer, or does it just get incorporated into the soil/mulch pretty quickly?

Linda, it does last for quite a long time for me. Its tiny pellets so they take sometime to disappear. I would be list without this stuff. Hope it works for you.

Crikey is Strine, Sandy. But it was slightly archaic even when Steve Irwin started using. It is a mild oath and derived from the word "Christ".

When I move to Australia I'm going to need you for my interpreter, Glen !

This tomato bed I changed back into grassy lawn. Now I will have to find somewhere else in my garden to plant those tomatoes next year.

I just finished pulling up my dead pepper and tomato vines and stacking the cages away. It's sad to see all the tomatoes on the ground that went to waste. Even sadder to see the empty space where once there grew a healthy bunch of plants. Well, I guess the soil will rest until next spring.

Plan for spring. That's what I do!

I always like seeing the garden in the fall when the plants have been pulled and the ground rototilled for next season. New beginnings I guess.

I agree, Arlene -- something very satisfying about seeing that tilled-up earth... and yet, after not getting a chance to till last fall or spring of this year, because it was so rainy, I'm thinking I may never till again! I felt that I had more earthworms, less weeds, and every bit as happy of plants (other than having an unusually cool summer) as I ever have this year; and, once again the ground is what I feel is too wet to till it up anyway (with more rain coming after tomorrow), so I'm going to give it a try for another year. One thing that totally amazed me was how well all the leaves and stuff that we had piled on the garden last year had broken down; what was left I just raked out of the way as I planted and then raked back for a little mulch before I had grass clippings to use. And I did use my garden fork to break up the soil (but without turning it over) where my root crops were being planted. Now I'm considering getting a "broadfork" for that purpose...