Oh Mary, I am so happy to hear from you. I've been missing you too and thinking of you and hoping your recovery is going well. Just take good care of yourself and regain your health and keep talking to us. It is important for us all to stay in touch even if something happens and one or more of us are not gardening much. I'm glad you have a few tomato plants. I know you'll miss the garden, but if you can get bette, then maybe you can have one next year....and then you'll be back canning salsa and pickles in no time at all.

There's times I get tired and burned out on gardening, usually after a horrible summer drought, and I plan and plot and decide that the next year I'll take a year off from the garden and do something else with my time. I alway chicken out and don't do it because, honestly, I think it would drive me crazy to try to spend a year without an edible garden. What would we eat?

Hang in there. You've been through so much lately, and I am hoping and praying you'll be restored to better health.

Sending you hugs,

Dawn

HI Mary!

Hi Hi!!! *waves frantically*

Hi, Mary!

Mary, I'm glad you posted. I'm terribly behind this year. Ill probably get a few scrawny onions, and hoping and praying for a smallish crop of tomatoes and peppers. Something snapped my basil off to about an inch of stem and kept my hostas eaten down to the ground. Could be bunnies or possums, who knows? I just found out my peace rose has Rose Rosette Disease and my weeds are going nuts. I've just decided to do what I can with what I have. Still loving reading what others are doing and planning what I can do. We can be other gardeners' cheerleaders for now, right?

I'm sorry to hear your Peace Rose has RRD, Sandplum. So far, our roses have escaped RRD and I've been exceedingly careful to avoid bringing in any new roses for fear I'll bring in RRD on a new rose without knowing it. I planted my last new rose bush in 2005 and would like to have more, but feel like the risk is too high any more with RRD plaguing our region. I guess when our current roses die, we'll just replace them with something that is not a rose. I keep reading the standard recommendations to keep planting new roses and not worry about RRD because you always can buy more rose bushes to replace those that die Huh? Why would we plant something that is being decimated by a disease borne by aphids? I'd rather just give up growing roses and not have to deal with the heartbreak of RRD. I don't plant trees or shrubs that are prone to specific diseases that kill them and I'm not going to plant rose bushes that are prone in a similar way to a deadly disease that is running rampant. I suppose the recommendation to replant with new roses is one that favors the rose industry more than it favors the gardeners who are spending their hard-earned dollars.