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["Jeanne Driese" <jeanne13 AT earthlink.net>]

Bev, good to hear from you!
Here in TN we are slowly dying, especially me on the side of a slate based 
hill.  Now the battle is to keep the perenials alive.  The volunteer fire 
departments are putting water in some of the ponds for the cattle.  It is 
hard to find much in the way of local produce now.  It has been an 
interesting year to say the least.
We have had a 1/2 inch of rain in September and none in July or August and, 
as you say, October is normally our driest month with no more than an inch in 
a normal year.
Jeanne in NE TN
>From Mjkoaktreecottag AT aol.com  Sun Sep 23 11:20:51 2007
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The 3-Sisters of the of the Native Americans, which, fortunately for them,
the smarter of the early English settlers learned to use, is corn (maize),
climbing beans, and (winter) squash.

To avoid the borers on my summer squash I put a few plants out early and
cross my fingers
that they all won't get attacked, but usually didn't have much of a crop,
until I learned this trick.  I never put my main planting, from seed,   out 
here
in the Shenandoah Valley until after July 1st, when the mama  wasp[?] stops
flying so that she can't pierce the Sq. stems to lay her eggs.  Almost always
works for me, so that I have a good crop of bush patty pans,  zuchinni, and
yellow squash in August and they are still bearing 3rd week in  Sept.

I have a garden volunteer who didn't/won't take my advice and she lost most
of her crooknecks, although she still has 1 and a white patty pan left,  that
she planted in our demonstration 4-Square Kitchen Garden at the Living
History Farm.  She also planted  winter sq. on the compost pile and  still 
has 1
plant with 1 sq. on it left, but borers got most of her winter  squash too. I
never had borer problems there on winter sq. in previous years,  when I did 
the
planting, but I usually direct seed and she put out started  plants.  She did
get 1 nice 'LI Cheese' pumpkin in another planting,  but that is not much of a
crop. In fairness, it was pretty dry  here....



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