V, Sorry I haven't been around to check the thread! Writing a note to someone made me remember. Anyway, I bought it as a small plant. It only too 3 years to bloom. There's a trick to it. Wisterias like constricted roots to bloom. People have written about buying in pots in bloom only to plant in the garden and never see a bloom again. Or I've read of root pruning to promote bloom. So I did what would normally be completely wrong when gardening. I created a bathtub effect in my clay soil. I dug a big washtub size hole. I got rid of all the clay which was most of the soil. Then I planted the wisteria in the hole with good compost and soil. I figured it would cause a lot of root growth that would get constricted once it hit the clay. It seems to have worked. My husband pounded a long solid pipe into the ground to use as a training stake. So I trained it myself removing lower growth and tying it up to make a trunk. My pruning technique is not too professional. I cut off what grows out of bounds all season, and I remove new shoots/branches that I don't want. I tried a long time ago to read a pruning technique with pics, and I got confused, said the heck with it, and have just hacked at it ever since, lol. You can see though, that I have lots of bloom. It also re-blooms in August. It is not as showy then being full of foliage, but it is still nice. I do get suckers popping up around the base, but that is to be expected. I prune them out. Where the grass is gone around the tree is from my dogs running. around it. I unfortunately taught them to play chase around it, and they wear the grass out making it very unattractive. But I love my dogs. Point being nothing is going to pop out of that and if it did, it doesn't have a chance. Remy

Have a question. I have four large desert rose plants. Two of them produced two seed pods two years ago. Last year the same two produced three. This year I just discovered I have two pods on one and eleven (11) on one that has not produced pods before. They have all just started. Is it possible all eleven on the one plant will have viable seeds in each pod. And no I do not grow the for a nursery or anything like that. These are in my back yard. Thanks, Tanya

I have plenty of Jeminez in the freezer. From a personal perspective, I was not that impressed with Jeminez. Here in the southeast, it was a rather heavy podded bean with too strong flavor. Only Super Marzano had stronger flavor. For all around general use, a very pretty bean, that can be canned, or eaten fresh, I grow Blue Marbutt. I have a tentative bean growout planned for next year of Tobacco Worm, Grandma's Black Tricolor, Fortex, Emerite, Alabama #1, and maybe Neckargold. At a separate location, I may put in another 10 or so varieties. I am using basic separation of 50 ft between rows with intervening rows of competing flowering veggies to reduce crossing. As noted by others above, I get less than 1% crossing. As an aside, the worst crossed variety I've dealt with was Alabama #1. The original seed given to me by a local seed saver had crossed with something similar to Rattlesnake sometime about 10 years ago. Even with the extreme levels of crossing, I was still able to isolate out about half of the plants that have all the traits of the original. It is a black seeded bean with dark green pods that have some purple on them. They are 5 to 7 inches long with medium pod strings on heavy producing pole bean plants. Flavor is exceptionally good. Nematode tolerance is the best I've yet seen, but heat tolerance is distinctly less than I would like. Given that I have re-selected back to the original beans, I am about to start a crossing program with hopes of crossing Alabama #1 with Emerite, Fortex, and Neckargold. These are three varieties that would benefit from incorporating the nematode tolerance genes. Did anyone else notice Miracle of Venice with black beans posted above? I have a strong impression that it should be white. DarJones

I love young poke leaves, the first one's to pop up in early spring, cooked the way the ole timers do. I cultivate a few large plants in my yard for that very reason. To me it tastes milder and better than spinach. Plus, it's a spring tonic full of vitamins, minerals, good for what ails ya. The spring tonics are the greens that arrive first that our benevolent earth had the wisdom to know that our bodies would need to be cleansed and refreshed from eating heavier things during the winter. Asparagus, spinach, mustard, collards, kale, chard, lettuces, and POKE! All good blood and gall bladder cleansers. It's a fact that most gall bladder operations are done in the spring. That's because some folks don't realize that puppy needs to be cleaned out, not removed. Carol, over in your neck of the woods and a little farther east in Missouri and Arkansas, poke grows in thickets in the early spring. I used to go over there and pick when it was really fresh and nice. It's really not as scary as some would have you to believe, cause all the old timers swore by it, and had the wisdom to know how to prepare it. But your right, in that it does have to be controlled in areas where it grows well, because of those darn birds. Anyone here ever drink sassafras tea? That's another country thang. I was born in Missouri, in the Mark Twain national forest area, one of the areas where sassafras is grown, and mom would always make sassafras tea. I loved it but I think the gov finally banned it. Barbara Here is a link that might be useful: Poke-medicinal and yummy