ness

Billethead -- what are the sides of your beds made from?

I'm starting to get mater anxiety. I've got 4-5 really nice ones that are not quite ready to pull. We've got an old tree line across the back and it's home to a lot of squirrels. They've been known to wait until they're just about ripe then eat just enough that it ruins the tomato. These cooler days should help the maters set a bunch more fruit, but I'll still be pist if those first ones don't make it inside. I'm growing Sun Gold cherry tomatoes for the first time this year. I'm not a huge cherry fan, but I've heard so many good things about this variety that I gave it a shot. They've been coming on for a couple weeks now, and they sure are tasty. Real good tomato flavor with a nice balance of sweetness and acidity. Almost a fruity taste. Another couple weeks and I'll be swimming in these things. http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-7929-sun-gold-f1.aspx Harvested a nice bunch of Rattlesnake beans last night, some more black raspberries and a few gooseberries. It's been a banner year in the garden so far.

I was out fishing some strip pits Monday. That popper was sitting there glistening in the sun in my box, but I just couldn't do it. I'm not done looking at it. Maybe someday.

Sweet!

I've never heard anything but good things about Lilley's Landing. Glad you had a good trip. That's a heck of a drive!

Hey Goob, Welcome to Ozark Anglers. There's a lot of good info here. Seems like it's divided up into 3 camps here: lake/bass fishermen, stream smallmouth bass fishermen, and the trout guys -- who are by far the coolest There are great opportunities in MO and those kayaks will get you into a lot of places you can't go on foot, and the nicest places too IMO -- so don't think you're behind the curve if you don't have a boat. Lots of kayak and canoe folks on here.

Had a hot spell and now it's cooling down for the weekend. Sposta get some rain too. Already picked a bunch of Cylindra beets and pickled them. Have a couple of the Sun Gold cherry tomatoes ready to pick. Heirloom maters are looking great -- hope to have some Brandywine, Cherokee Purple and Black Krims soon. Have picked a few banana peppers - the rest of the peppers are coming along slowly. I'm a day or two away from a bunch of green beans -- Dragon Tongue and Rattlesnake. About another week and I'll have 4 heads of cabbage to do something with -- maybe kraut. My early stuff always seems to up and quit too soon. Spinach and snap peas went kaput a couple weeks ago. Big news for me is the first year for a crop of black raspberries. Third year I've had them -- didn't get the net on soon enough last year and the few I had coming on got eaten by the birds (who then crapped them onto my car). exiledguide -- You might want to look into square foot gardening. I've got back issues too and have done well with it. It's raised beds with very light soil that doesn't need tilling. I lug a milk crate around with me and sit on it when I need to do something. Four-foot wide beds make it easy to reach into the middle. Dense planting minimizes weeding, and gets you a lot more stuff in a smaller area than rows do.

Nice. Looks like he's mostly fishing in Rocky Mountain National Park in the other videos. I love it out there.

Needs razor wire along the top. Any enterprising floater could scale that in no time.

I like it, of course.

F&F -- I'd do the buttermilk, just like you did. Poo on those know-it-alls. ps: I'd nix the cilantro.

Call Tom Hargrove at (314) 968-4223 and ask him about it. He owns a flyshop in St Louis and makes some custom rods. I suspect the fact that it's numbered means he keeps a record of them.

And just why are you so interested in this? Hmmmmmmmmmm??????

Man, that's some good stuff right there. The remotes crack me up sometimes. We had something happen at a school in town a while back. The reporter was standing in front of a school, but it wasn't THAT school. She said something like 'It happened at a school like this one.' Must not have had time to drive to the real one. Or, didn't want to take the chance. Then there's the old standby -- find a police car, police station or some crime scene tape to stand in front of when one of those crime things happens. I'd bet they keep a roll of crime scene tape in the car just in case. A while back they were all begging you to post on their cool new Facebook page. Now at least one of our stations has a Twitter feed crawling across the bottom of the screen. And the polls....

Real Housewives of Flippen?

Sorry to leave you guys hanging. I got dragged into this latest Hoffa thing. I wish I had a nickel for every dying mafioso who got his last kicks out of sending the g-men out to another field or barn with a hope of finding that dude. I can't get into details, but I will say he's still around -- never was whacked. I still see him every Wednesday at the club, where we play Gin Rummy. He can still sock away the Old Fashioneds like nobody's business. The Gandolfini funeral would be a decent place to be if you wanted to talk to Jimmy, who now goes by Tito. Anyhoo -- Chip and George pulled me aside and said they wanted to run an idea past me. George's father had just passed away, and George had inherited a warehouse full of 30 tons of silicone gel, the result of his dad's failed attempt to corner the breast augmentation market. Senior had left a mountain of debt, and creditors were chomping at the bit for anything they could convert into cash. Chip's dad, Chuckie, had been swindled out of the Orvis fortune buying a nonexistent wicker creel factory in the Philippines. Both were in desperate financial shape. The two had been marketing majors at Chicago University, and had been befriended by a biology professor by the name of Roger Q. Mayfly. The summer after their sophomore year was a haze of alcohol, pot and hallucinogenic mushrooms, with 'Proff' supplying the goods for the week-long camping 'trips'. Late one night, Mayfly mentioned an idea for a book based on his childhood in New Jersey -- growing up with an alcoholic, absentee, bus-driver dad and a heroin-addicted prostitute mother. Anxious to use his newly acquired marketing skills, and fueled by a righteous buzz, Chip suggested changing the premise of the story to something more -- well -- something more likely to move some silicone and old outdated fly fishing equipment. They called me to ask my opinion, and I told them of a novella I was ghost writing for my friend Norman McClean at the university. Thus a River Runs Through It was born. Sorry, I'm gonna have to finish this later.

Nerver? I do believe the self-proclaimed 'Chief' is rattled. As for the pre-Chief topic at hand: Al -- I've got to agree with you. There's an awful lot of stuff to be concerned about, but the slang name "Czar" sure isn't one of them. I'd bet the founding fathers would get a chuckle out of the concern over that. And, yeah, 501( c)4's need to be scrutinized, as do 501( c)3's and all the rest. If you want to be tax exempt, you gotta play by the rules and expect to have a little higher hurdle than the rest. From what I'm seeing, there was a reasonable suspicion that the Tea Party groups might be trying to skirt the rules. But, add to that good old human nature, and it could go awry pretty easily. As with so much of this, it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. It's gonna be a while before the dust settles and the closest thing we'll ever get to the truth is revealed. I'm pretty patient though.

Yep -- but keep working on it. We can tell you're trying. "E" for effort, and all that. Your C&R post started out pretty good too, then you slipped. This won't happen overnight! Just give it your best shot!

Well, lookey who's out to derail this by getting personal. You just can't help yourself, can you?

I'd snip off those yellow leaves and discard them. I also always prune off the lower stems so no leaves are close to the ground to prevent splash up and soil-borne disease. And try to water below the foliage -- not over the leaves. I use a wand and tuck it up under everything when I water. I've been using a copper fungicide, but it's gooey, clogs my sprayer and is a pain to clean up. I'm gonna go with something else -- I've heard Ortho Max broad spectrum fungicide is good.

Everything is coming along great this year with this cool spring. We've had so much rain that I'm afraid of fungus getting a foothold, so I need to get ahead of that. Maters have set a lot of fruit -- should have some in a couple weeks; already have a couple banana peppers to pick in a day or two. Beans took a while to flower, but they've finally done it. Two things that always seem to be a challenge for me -- snap peas and spinach -- were ok, but they are about done. Built some lightweight wooden frames with bird netting to protect the black raspberries. Within 20 minutes my dog had run through it Got that fixed up, and gave him a little gift today -- a fresh battery for his Invisible Fence collar. Problem solved. Strawberries are throwing off fruit at a decent pace. I've been doing those in pots, and never seem to have enough. I started some more Alpine strawberries this year. Not much yield on those, but they're as sweet and strongly-flavored as candy -- they never make it into the house. Two red varieties and a yellow one. My uncles were out yesterday and one of them said one one of my Celebrity tomatoes didn't look right -- maybe it was mislabeled at the nursery. I told him that was impossible -- I started them all from seed. Then I took a closer look and -- it's not a Celebrity. It's got to be a Sungold (cherry), which I've already got two of, which was probably one too many as it was. Oh well.

Naw -- it was the 'heart's desire' thing. Haven't been to Vogel's in more than 10 years. It was fine back then.

Oh, OK -- it just sounded kinda...never mind.

Hah -- nice spin there. At least now you are acknowledging your other posts weren't accurate. Fact is, you were sweating bullets over that issue, and agreed to stay off the stream to keep it from going to court. Couple more rounds and what -- you told the sheriff to shove it and Prater went to jail? But hey -- I've got better things to do than to continue to refute your attempt to rewrite history. If you can figure out a way to check that ego of yours and just treat folks right, you'll have less trouble here and on the stream. I think you've got it in you. Hope you had a great day with your baby girl.