Hi Laura, welcome from another member who's been addicted for a few years. I'd be glad to send you few pkts of different seeds for postage, if you want to, email me ,ok? enjoy trading! Bea

Hi! I am Beth and my mom is xiangirl. I would trade with your daughter, but I have different seeds. I have blackseeded watermelon, knucklhead pumpkin, jackbelittle pumpkin. I'm 15. It's okay if you want to find someone who has what she wants. Beth

Best cantalope was Pride of Wisconsin. Howden best pumpkin. Only tried watermelon one time think it was Charleston Grey. Steve in Baltimore County.

Carol, Down here I can see flea beetle damage on radishes and beets as early as February of most years, and they will hit the tomato plants, eggplants and pepper plants as soon as they are transplanted into the ground. This year, I think the flea beetles have hit them in the greenhouse and when I have the plants outside sitting in full sun and full wind. (The greenhouse can protect them too much once the shadecloth is on it.) Something else is eating big holes in the leaves of everything I planted. It looks like grasshopper damage but I've only seen a small number of hoppers. Whatever is doing the damage, I don't see that insect in the garden during the day when I am out there. Maybe it is the June bugs? Who knows? Seems like it will be a bad bug year for sure. After saying I hadn't seen any aphids, they showed up on the Piricicaba broccoli around Wednesday or Thursday. By Saturday, the lady bugs had shown up, so I am sure the lady bugs will take care of the aphids. We have a lot of crickets, and before the weather turned cooler, they were making that cricker/hopper/locust humming racket in the woods at night that we hear most of the summer. I was SO not ready to have all that to listen to. Once the temps dropped, they got quieter again. Susan, We have about a half-billion June bugs and a billion crane flies. They are just driving me insane. Every time we open a door they fly in, etc., etc. and they are all over the yard, garden, greenhouse, garden shed, garage, etc. I've never seen so many craneflies or June bugs. I'll be glad when they are gone. We're also seeing tons of ticks and mosquitoes. I haven't seen any cicada killers yet, but lots and lots of spiders are out building webs, and I noticed spittlebugs on the grasses in the pastures this weekend. The fire ants are appearing in epic numbers for this early in the year. Every day I am seeing more and more butterflies and moths. I've been watching for luna moths because I usually see them in April, but haven't seen any yet. Carol, Our hummingbird population quadrupled over the weekend, making me think the first ones I saw were the early birds (pun intended) and that the main migration is now occurring. If you move your hummingbird feeders to a new location every spring, you'll quickly learn which birds are new to your place and which ones were there last year. The returnees from last year inevitably go to the spot where the feeders were last year even if there are no feeders in that spot this year. That's how I can tell if any are "returnees". I have seen a few green lacewings and a ton of tiny bees and parasitic wasps. The bird population is huge this year, and I hope they all stay busy eating the bad bugs. Dawn