Maybe your tomato crop did not produce as you would have hoped, but look back in your gardening journal and note all of the vegetables that excelled: potatoes, carrots, greens, all of the cole crops and artichokes.

OK, so the corn was a total bust. The pumpkins were a deep disappointment. This does not mean that I am not going to plant them again this year. Of course I am.

Each growing season brings different challenges. No two years are ever alike. There is no such thing as “normal” as far as Weather is concerned. This is latitude 59 degrees north. Not exactly Iowa. Let’s take what we can get and be grateful.

This certainly is not to say that you shouldn’t try something new. Why not? This may be the summer of all summers for corn and you sure do not want to miss that.

There are those of you who, before freezeup, take snippets of tomato plants and pot them up to take into the house for the long winter. Or you even went so far as to bring the whole plant inside. I am willing to bet that you are now eating tomatoes from your kitchen window. Excellent and congratulations on your tenacity and patience. Tomatoes are nothing if not weeds, and delicious.

This being a good solid winter with single digit temperatures and blizzard conditions I turned my thoughts to E. coli. Hasn’t everyone? Oh. Well, I did.

Everything I have read in the newspapers and magazines seems to address commercial farming, not backyard vegetable plots. Not being an Internet person I made my call to the Cooperative Extension Service in Soldotna (800-478-5824) and promptly received two printouts that sort of answer my concerns. I say “sort of” because anyone can interpret this information to suit their needs.

But I think the most applicable information is to thoroughly wash vegetables before you eat them. Gone are the days of pulling a carrot, wiping it off on your pants and eating it right on the spot.

Here are the two Internet sites that were sent to me:

* gardening.wsu.edu/stewardship/compost/manure/ manure2.htm;

* www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/foodnut/09369.html.

This being January, I am allowed to jump from topic to topic so let’s go to saving your Christmas tree. Last year I discovered how effective it is to use spruce boughs for mulch. I am ever so happy with the results of this. We were lucky enough to find a fresh tree down that we limbed and used to cover the perennial beds.

But I have two William Baffin climbing roses that are not protected by the fence. They have proven to be bait for moose. I am convinced that moose will come to my house from Diamond Ridge to eat these two roses. There they are, conspiring among themselves, headed my way, no deviation, straight as an arrow.

My vision of these two roses anchoring the corners of the house has been thwarted year after year and not because the rose refuses to thrive. No. Because of the moose. They manage to gnaw these two down by two thirds each and every year, just not giving them a chance to shine the following growing season. I want to see these roses in full bloom rising above the bleeding hearts, twining through the moose rack, spilling over the gates.

I understand the moose were here before me. I even have some guilt about the significant fence that we have built to protect this garden. But not enough guilt because it is now electrified to boot.

So here are these two roses that would, should and could look just really magnificent but they most certainly don’t. I took the biggest boughs and tied them to the trellises that support them (climbing roses don’t really climb, they need to be tied to something) so the roses now look more like spruce trees than roses. And the resident moose are, so far, leaving them alone. I am thrilled.

We even, briefly, considered lacing them with lights for the holidays.

The point here is to take your Christmas tree and use the limbs as mulch or camouflage on your most important and/or dearly loved plants.

It is a new year, folks; carpe diem.

Note: I would like to thank Janice Chumley, Integrated Pest Management Technician at the Cooperative Extension Service in Soldotna, for the time she has spent with me over the years to ferret out the answers to my questions.

Be thinking about the Northwest Flower & Garden Show in Seattle Feb. 14-18. For more information call (206) 325-4510 or www.gardenshow.com.