colleen i am sorry you felt my observation was nasty. i only meant to say that whoever told would be better able to clarify what they meant where for others it would be just a guess. it seems that someone did reply to your question 30mins before your post here, you should have had that anqwer in your email ;-) just another observation "Start the seeds every week or two until early fall, and you'll have plenty of Lettuce up until late fall. o RE: Lettuce in a container question * Posted by colleen_gardener 6 Bayonne, NJ (My Page) on Sat, Jun 9, 07 at 19:14 How much sun/shade does lettuce need? Is it like tomatoes where it needs a lot of sun and water? I don't understand what you mean by start seeds every week or two until early fall - keep putting seeds in the same pot? o RE: Lettuce in a container question * Posted by organic49 Edison,N.J. (My Page) on Sat, Jun 9, 07 at 19:33 5-6 hours of sun is enough. Lettuce doesn't like summer heat.Keep containers moist daily. Starting seeds every week,keeps you in lettuce all the time. Move to shade throughout summer." Here is a link that might be useful: Lettuce in a container question

Are those flats that you refer to look like individual cell packs? I purchased a flat of annuals for a plant swap and it was like 32 cells. I kept it because it was so nice and thought I could use it come spring time but the darn squirrels and chipmunk probably would dig up anything that was planting in it I'm afraid. I would think that they would dry out too quickly. I did find it hard to get the plants out of it though.

Lynn, I see that you and I still like many of the same tomatoes. LOL I think you will like Jubilee and Jaunne Flammee'. Both are really great performers in our heat, but your heat probably is worse than ours. Heatwave is iffy. It does produce in the July and August heat but the flavor is a little lacking (but you know that I say that based on my "heirloom-preferring" tastebuds). In your soil and your growing conditions, it may taste better than it did in my soil and growing conditions. I do think Heat Wave II tasted better to me than the original Heat Wave. Brandy, Sorry if I confused you by referring to seeds sown directly into the ground as wintersown. On GardenWeb, winter sown does refer to seeds sown in containers and exposed to the cold temps. To me, though, anything I plant in the winter in wintersown, which probably would drive the people on the wintersowing forum nuts! LOL If you want a good explanation of wintersowing, go to the wintersowing forum here at GardenWeband read Trudi's FAQ. It is very informative. I sow larkspur, poppies, etc. into the ground anytime between November and February, depending on when I get around to it. This seeds will sprout in the cold and form tiny ground-hugging rosettes. You won't see much vertical growth, but they are making roots all that time and, when the spring conditions are right, they start to grow like crazy. (Lots of cool season weeds, by the way, grow exactly the same way....germinating in fall or winter's cooler weather and flying under the radar until spring). Some plants don't like to be transplanted, and for me, poppies and larkspur are two of those. (I have transplanted poppies before, but they aren't crazy about it because they have long taproots.) So, wintersowing them in containers doesn't work because they get mad when you transplant them into the ground. As far as the purple coneflowers and hollyhocks....I tried numerous times to start them indoors under lights. I was able to do it with the hollyhocks pretty easily, but the coneflowers just didn't want to sprout. Yet, they would reseed readily in my garden. So, I wintersowed some a couple of years ago and had great results. As for the hollyhocks, there is no reason to take up a lot of space indoors under lights because I can direct sow them into the ground (if it is not a rainy winter) or in flats. They transplant easily and are pretty cold hardy. I seem to get higher germination rates with the ones sown outside than I do with the ones sowed inside. I love hollyhocks and have them every year. However, if a really, really wet rainy year, the seed often rots before it can germinate because I have horrible, slow-draining red clay soil. Your problem with hollyhocks last year probably had more to do with the excessively wet weather, the lack of sunshine as it seemed to stay cloudy FOREVER, and the late cold spells. Those three conditions caused lots of problems with plants here that are usually pretty easy to grow. Between "the cold" and "the wet", a lot of roots were stunted and the plants just didn't grow. I noticed this weekend that hollyhocks are already sprouted in my garden. They are small and low to the ground, with 2 or 3 leaves about the size of a nickle or so. You could direct sow hollyhocks in the ground now or wintersow some in a flat or other container. My main challenge with wintersowing is that the cats like to lay on any flat I plant anything in, even if I have lids on the flats! The dogs, of course, like to walk on the containers, and the wild things, like racoons and possums, like to paw through the soil looking for whatever. Also, if I am not careful, the wind carries them all away, even when I think I have them in places where they are sheltered from the wind. Dawn

Started 3/7 and staggered every weekend Started these * Have more replants than I hoped for...but going well Will start pastes and my early/cold varieties next. *Abraham Lincoln Accordian *Amana Orange Amish Paste *Amish Salad Ananas Noir Anna Russian *Arkansas Traveler *Arumugam *Aunt Gertie's Gold *Aunt Ginnys Purple *Aunt Ruby's German Green *Aviuri *Azoychka Baby Beefsteak *Bear Claw Beauty King Beaverlodge 48-211B *Beaverlodge 6808 Beefsteak *Berkley Tie Die *Big Rainbow *Big Zac (hybid) *Bison *Black *Black Cherry *Black From Tula *Black Krim *Black Pear *Black Plum *Black Prince *Black Sea Man *Black Zebra *Bloody Butcher Blue Ridge Mountain *Bonnie Best *Box Car Willie *Brandywine Black *Brandywine Pink *Brandywine Red Brandywine X Stupice F3 *Brandywine Yellow (Platfoot Strain) Burpee's Sunny Earliana Campari Canabec Super *Caspian Pink Cheerio Cherokee Chocolate *Cherokee Green *Cherokee Purple Cold Set *CooperÂs Special *Cosmonaut Volkov Costoluto Genovese Coustralee Cows Tit Coyote *Crimson Sprinter Debbie Beefsteak *Delicious *Depp's Pink Firefly *Ding Wall Scotty *Dr. Carolyn *Dr. Wyche's Yellow *Druzba Dutchman *Earl of Edgecomb Earliana Earliana (Schnell's) Earli North Earlicrop *Earl's Faux Early Glee Early Maturing Siberian Early Stokesdale #4 *Eva Purple Ball *Evergreen *Farmer Reds Ferguson *Flamme *Flathead Monster Franchi Semealte *Fuzzy Peach *Galinas *Garden Peach GardnerÂs Delight *Gary OÂSena *German Head *German Johnson *German Pink *German Queen *German Red Strawberry Glacier Gold Currant Golden Queen Golden Sunburst *Grandfather Ashlock *Grandpa Charlie *Grandpa Willie *Granny CantrellÂs Great White *Green Giant *Green Zebra *Gregori's Altai *GrubÂs Mystery Green *Grushkova Halms Gelbe Topftomate Hanover Health Kick (hybrid) *Heidi *Hillbilly *Holland 59-R *Howard German Isis Candy Italian Italian Oxheart *JerryÂs German Giant *Jubilee Kalman's Hungarian Pink *KBX *KelloggÂs Breakfast *Kimberly Kotlas Large Red Cherry Levino *LillianÂs Yellow Livingston Goldball *Liz Birt *Lucky Cross Lutescent Lyana *Magnus *Manitoba *Manyel *Marglobe *MariannaÂs Peace *Marmande *Marvel Stripe Matt's Wild Cherry Mexico Micro Tom Cherry *MilkaÂs Bulgarian Missouri Pink Love Apple *Mobil *Money Maker Morden Morden Yellow Mortgage Lifter *Mortgage Lifter Estler's Strain Mortgage Lifter Pale Leaf Moscow Delicious Moscow UR Moskovich *Mr. Bruno *Mr. Stripey *Mule Team Negro Azteca *Neves Azorean *New Big Dwarf *Nicky Crain *Northern Lights *OG Sunrise VII Old German *Olena Ukranian *Omar's Lebanese Opalka Orange Banana Orange Strawberry *Oregon Spring *OTV Brandywine Pantano Romanesco *Paul Robeson *Pearson *Persimmon *Pineapple *Pink Berkley Tye Dye Plum Lemon Polar Circle *Polish "C" *Polish (Ellis) Polish Linguisa *Ponderosa Pink Ponderosa Red *Preacher Principe Borghese *PrudenÂs Purple *Purple Calabash *Purple Russian Red Currant *Red Heart Yellow *Red House Freestanding Red Juliet Plum (hybrid) Red Ponderosa Red Robin *Red Zebra Reif Red Heart Riesentraube Roma VF Roma Roman Candle Rosy Red *Ruby Gold Ruby Sport *Russian 117 Rutgers Rutgers Select Sara Black Sasha's Altai Pride Sausage *Scotia *Shaker Village Siberia Siberian Siberian Bushy Siberian Fast Siberian #2 *Siletz Silvery Fir Tree Snow White *Soldacki Speckled Roman Sp00n (Curtis) Spudalucie *Spudtula Black *Spudyellow Strawberry Starfire Striped Caverns Stupice Sub Arctic Cherry Sub Arctic Early Sub Arctic Maxi Sub Arctic Midi Sub Arctic Mini Sub Arctic Plenty Sunray Super Beefsteak Super Marmande Sweet Tangerine Tappy's Heritage Ten Foot Large Red Pole *Thessoloniki Throwback Potato Leaf Plum Tibet Appel Tidwell German Tiny Tim Tondina Maremmano Uncle SteveÂs Italian Plum Unknown Pink Paste Uri Veepick *Vintage Wine Vision Vova Yellow Wagon Wheel WandaÂs Potato Top *Watermelon Beefsteak White Beauty White Wonder Wild Chiapas Wins All Wisconsin 55 Gold *Wisconsin 55 Red Yellow Beefsteak Yellow Pear Yellow Perfection Yellow Ruffles Yellow Submarine