Why don't you just pick the pumpkins when they are ripe and not leave them to rot in your yard. Also if you leave them in your yard you will not get new pumpkins. What you will get is a mass of seedlings (20+) in one spot and since there are so many so close together they are stuggle to survive and produce weak plants that will eventually die. The problem is if squirrels or other critters spread out the seeds. I have a cacao tree in a huge pot in my yard and a squirrel planted a dozen or so seeds about 4 inches apart (which is still too close but you get the idea). Also if you till the area this will spead out the seeds. On a side note you absolutely should move your pumpkins to another area next year. If you keep your patch in the same spot you will find that it becomes infested with all sorts of bad bugs (bad for your pumpkins).

Smeep, Wisteria is getting ready to bloom in about 4 weeks in the south. Depending on which wisteria it is, some blooms come out before the leaves, some after. How do you know it is wisteria if it doesn't have leaves? Did you see blooms and leaves last summer? To answer your question, yes, you can severly prune it now. You might even get more blooms on it believe it or not. That vine probably hasn't had a good pruning in a long time. It'll do it good. If it doesn't bloom this year, but looks better, will you be disappointed? If not, hack it down. It stimulates growth, and flowers. Don't fertilize it whatever you do, just mulch.

(I have deposited more-than-a-year-old checks and had them clear; I can understand why your DH did this, as well as him not noticing. Also, my next-door neighbors were getting old a senile, and didn't cash pension checks; they got a letter saying "did you get your check? it hasn't been cashed? but it was many months later, and it was several checks still on the DR table, not one check) when they took the money out of your savings account, did they give the "defective" check back to you? Shouldn't they have? Demand it be returned to you. (a lesson to us all--if we are giving a bank money back for a check, we should get the check physically returned to us) Unless they submitted it all over again? Here's what I think happened, if I understand this right. (some queries, though) 1. You give them a check, they give you cash. 2. They send the check to the central clearing house (the Federal Reserve?) to get their money. 3. The central clearing house gives the CU its money, and sends the check on to GM to get the money back from them. 4. GM sends the check--but no money--back to the central clearing house as "defective"'; the central clearing house is still in need of money. 5. The central clearing house sends the check back to the CU as "defective" and wants its money back from them. I would think the CU would have an account of money it would use to cover this; it pays the central clearing house, and the central clearing house is out of it. 6. the CU brings the check back to you, and says they want that money back; they take it out of your account. THEY SHOULD GIVE THE CHECK BACK TO YOU--it is your property, once they have their money back. At the very least, they should have destroyed it, but really they should have given it to you so YOU could destroy it. I'm thinking this is where the CU goofed, and I'd press this point. 7. You get a replacement check, and submit it, and the "you to the CU to the central clearing house to GM" chain works, this time. (can you get the folks at GM to send you a copy of their canceled check, the replacement one that supposedly worked just fine? Might be nice to have) Suddenly the old "defective" check is around. (Sometimes if a check is returned for "insufficient funds," the bank will resubmit it, just in case the money will turn up. They will bill the depositor $15, and then if it's returned twice, they'll bill another $15; the check-writer's account will get billed as well each time; this was unpopular, so some banks don't make a second attempt. I'm wondering if your "defective" check got slipped into the "insufficient funds" category and was REsubmitted? So, let's postulate: 8. The credit union resubmits the check to the central clearing house (Federal Reserve?) to get the money. BUT IF THIS IS THE CASE, then they should have RECREDITED your account when they RESUBMITTED the check. (because if they don't give you any money, then they shouldn't be getting any money from anyone else--it's not their money, it's yours, they're just the "pipe" to move it around) Did they? If you can get them to trace their records of when the check was submitted, can you insist that they DO credit your account w/ the money, on that day? 9. The clearing house (FR?) gives the CU the money, and sends the "defective" check on to GM. 10. GM marks the "defective" check w/ a confusing note that was *intended* to indicate that this check has been replaced w/another check, and sends it, but no money, to the clearing house (FR?) 11. The clearing house sends the check back to the CU, demanding its money back. 12. The CU comes to you demanding the money that it owes to the FR. So, did they "give you money" for that check twice (once in cash, once by crediting your account)? No, you say--but if this is what happened, then they should have. Or else someone put that check in the wrong stack somewhere--and I'd want to SEE that check, and I'd want to try to figure who where the "in lieu of" came from. So they should have given you money twice, and asked to get money back from you twice. Maybe if that's the chain of events, you can make them re-credit your savings account w/t he money they owe you from having resubmitted the check (treating it as though you deposited it all over again), and then they can take it back out again. Good luck!

Was the planted seed commercial, or saved from a previous year? It sounds like it might have crossed with another bean... that usually results in sub-standard quality. I once planted Fortex, Goldmarie, & KY Wonder #191 side by side, and saved seed from KY Wonder #191. The following year, many of the pods were unusually flat, and had heavy strings. If you grew more than one bean & saved seed, crossing is the most likely reason for the stringiness. Even commercial seed is not guaranteed to be true to type; I bought some bush beans several years back for a late planting, and had quite a few plants with flat, stringy pods.