Hello, I'm looking for Jennifer, I think its McConnely or something close to that. As I told you before, I have two baby boys, age 16 months and 5 months today and it has been crazy since I brought the preemie home. Keagan was 10 weeks early. I can't seem to get anything accomplished cahasing after the toddler and taking care of the baby. Anyway, I put your card that came with the plants on my desk and was ready to get the Money Order and mail it out and the card is missing. I need your address again. Thank you so much. You are so generous. Brenda

Kind of, sort of. Finding a book with all of that would be remarkable, and finding such a book oriented to NE OK would be twice as remarkable. There's several good books to help get you started. Since you're more interested in edibles, I'd say Ed Smith's "Vegetable Gardening Bible" is essential. If you are growing in raised beds and want to maximize your production, I'd suggest the newest edition of Mel Bartholomew's "Square Food Gardening". The best book on getting the largest harvest in the smallest space is John Jeavons' book on biointensive gardening. It is called "How To Grow More Vegetables* (and fruits, nuts, berries, grains and other crops) *Than You Ever Thought Possible On Less Land Than You Can Imagine". Some people find his book hard to use because it is very detailed, very scientifically-oriented, and full of charts you spend time deciphering. I like it though, although I certainly do not take such a precise, measured, orderly approach to planting. I do raise vegetables using biointensive methods and my spacing is a hybrid of John Jeavons' recommmendations and Mel Bartholomew's recommendations further modified based on what I've found works for me in my soil and growing conditions. For a beginner gardener, Mel's book on square foot gardening is much easier to start out with....and John Jeavons' book is one you might graduate up to after you have some gardening experience. Rosalind Creasy's new book on Edible Landscaping is remarkable and fits my style of mixing together edibles and ornamentals in the same beds. It is, perhaps, my favorite gardening book of all the ones I've read...and I've read quite a few. It was her earlier books on Edible Landscaping that got me started on edible landscaping, but this recent work is the ultimate guide to edible landscaping and I truly love it, love it, love it. I'll let someone else mention the good books by Oklahoma writers because I haven't read them in over a decade and am not sure I remember the names of them any more, but there are a couple out there. Any gardening book written by Texas gardening guru Neil Sperry is top-notch and since Oklahoma is so close to Texas and we have similar soils and climate, his writing applies as much to us here in OK and to folks down in TX. One of my favorite books from recent years was new last year and its author is Barbara Pleasant, a long-time gardener and an author who writes books and for various gardening-oriented publications. I've linked it below. For a monthly calender (I don't think the weekly calendar you're hoping for really exists, but over time I've written my own weekly calendar in my head based on my soil, my climate, etc.), Google and find the website of the Tulsa Master Gardeners. They have a monthly "to do" calendar that is pretty handy. I'm assuming you already read "Urban Farm" magazine which is very, very good. I've ready "Mother Earth News" for decades and like it vey much, although I like it much more way back in the old days before it became so yuppiefied and sophisticated. "Organic Gardening" magazine is a mere shadow of itself and I've about given up on it. It is probably about 1/50th as helpful as it was in the old days and has gone downhill steadily and rapidly since Mike McGrath left. My favorite gardening magazine is "Texas Gardener" which I've read for many years (OK, decades) and find just as helpful to me in Oklahoma as it was in Texas. It has very detailed monthly "to do" calendars (It publishes six times yearly, so each issue has calendars for 2 months) that cover these categories in separate sections: "Vegetables and Herbs", "Perennials and Annuals", "Trees, Shrubs and Vines", "Fruits and Nuts" and "Lawns and Groundcovers". If I could read only one garden magazine a month, it would be "Texas Gardener" because it covers all the basics and has wonderfully well-written articles. I have the Nov./Dec. issue here at the table close to where I'm siting and it included articles on fall-grown berries, daffodils, growing great edible greens, preserving tomatoes, growing Lacy Oak, holiday herbs, sky island gardening, standard expectations for Texas patios (growing and maintaining standards in space-challenged areas like a patio), and the trials and treasures of growing vegetables. There's more, but I think that gives you a good idea of what it includes. Oh, and one more book. This is and always will be my favorite vegetable gardening book. It was first published in the 1980s and taught me so much about raising vegetables that I cannot even begin to imagine gardening without it. It is called "The Vegetable Book" and was written by the late, great Dr. Sam Cotner, back when he was the head of horticulture at Texas A&M University. The book has a separate chapter for each of the commonly grown vegetables: 31 of them and a 32nd chapter for veggies that were less commonly grown in the 1980s when it was published. There are various appendices that detail gardening-related topices like how to make a tomato cage, rototill a garden, lower or raise your soil pH, build a cold frame, pre-germinate seeds, etc. It is a bit over 400 pages long and my older edition is printed on high-quality paper with quite a few photos. It is available from Texas Gardener press which you can find by googling. They are the publishers of Texas Gardener magazine and publish and/or sell several regionally-oriented books as well. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Starter Gardens: 24 No-Fail Plans

Zinsser makes a great primer. The others are right though, it won't go on evenly like your final coat. You're doing fine. :) I painted a wood desk last summer and when I finished with the primer, I thought the same thing, "oh, what a mess I've made." But then I put on the first finish coat (a black high gloss paint), all of my doubts went away. You may need to put on two coats of your regular paint though since you're covering the wood and primer. I would put one coat on and then see if you even need to fill those corners. A little spackle will work - no mixing needed. When you first apply it it will be pink and then it dries to white. Then you can lightly sand it and paint on your final coat. Also, as others mentioned..use a really good regular paint brush. It will have finer bristles and give you a nice, smooth application. The inexpensive brushes have courser bristles. Believe me, the brush does make a difference. Bottom line is... you're doing great! :)

Wow, thank you all so much. Lavendar_lass thank you for posting that layout, I really am liking it (thank you Buehl as well, yes I have two growing sons and a huge husband, never thought of leg room!). Rebunky thanks for posting the pics I'll have more to say on that later because I love love love that buttery black counter with those pretty white counters and am guessing you are deciding backsplash? :) I am dying to see your kitchen. Excuse my absence, we've been in heavy duty talks. Thanks to the so many of you that posted, each and every one of you has given me something to consider, that's what I was looking for. I was dragging my feet on ordering cabinets (which is about to delay us), and I realized it was just that I wasn't really happy with the kitchen layout, but couldn't figure out why. I am really starting to get a better grip on the issues, challenges, and space requirements. I am embarrassed to admit we just didn't re-visit the issue of expansion of living space vs. screened porch, and I think this has to do to the evolution of our project. Which has been less than ideal. We spent months and months thinking based on one contractor) that it was out of reach. I think we just let that dream go, and didn't go back to it. DH who I thought might kill me, based on yet another design change, just loved it. Of course it comes down to numbers, for my interior contractor, I'm approved. I need to verify with the framers the true cost difference. He was talking additional baffles (?) and flooring framing (it's not over heated living space) however we wonder if treated vs. untreated wood and some other things may just really offset it. We will see. This has gotten me actually excited about the kitchen. Finally. This is the whole reason I love to have other eyes on a project, sometimes you just really gain a fresh perspective that shakes you up and lets you think out of the box. I'm notorious for getting stuck in that box, so I try to compensate. Main Line, I appreciate your opinion, I agree that professionals make a difference. I did go to a professional for the original design. She did know my thoughts, and designed accordingly without critique, so I see the downfall. We did buy our bath vanity from them ( it fell in budget). There were a few bath drawings with all this extra cabinetry. My husband said from the start, her job is to sell cabinetry of course she is going to add additional pieces in. Hmm, never thought of that. Good point DH. I certainly thank you Main Line for the point that this could've been designed in a similar but more efficient and more inexpensive way. Perhaps I got a bum designer. That's a shame, I really like working with her. But, I wouldn't know, unless I went on a board like this. As I said, I like to have FRESH eyes. I'm trying to learn A LOT to be an educated consumer, in a short period of time. This board has been truly sanity saving in the amount of generous people willing to share. Some of the best features in our previous home, and this current home, have been due to our own design work. Now there are code and clearance issues, as seen in this kitchen example, that we aren't educated in. And I did have a professional KD. So I like to get more than one opinion. I have more to say on this, but I won't here. I am going to post some pics, which show our floorplan. Again, we hired a designer, but honestly I gave him our window dimensions, and I don't think he drew them correctly (even after a prelim revision). Whole point was to see how the big windows would look placed in the space. This was an expert recommended by a neighbor who used him on numerous home flips and had known him for years, and I had visited her home he designed. So I'm sorry Main Line, maybe I've had some bad luck, but when I base work off of recommendations and it doesn't work out, well there's problems. And I'm the one stuck, so I prefer more than one recommendation on design. Thanks to you all, pics in follow post.