I discovered swiss chard when I lived in San Diego, an asian neighbor dug up some of her plants and gave me 2 big plants. I LOVED them. They had big huge leafs, I would steam and then briefly saute in fresh garlic and butter..YUMMMY...Now for some reason, the chard I have planted here in GA is not as good to me, the flavor is very different. I got a bunch of seeds in a seed exchange, so maybe the varieties were just not the same. I'm going to try to plant more of the big green ones, the shorter more colorful (more red stemmed ones) just dont have the same buttery taste to me. I also got seeds from a neighbor last year of what i was told was a climbing okra...turns out that it is something else which I cannot recall the name, I know that they are used when left to dry out to make luffa's?, and since they were planted so late last year, I did not get a chance to try them out..but they were really big long pods. I'll try them again this year and see what happens. I LOVE Okra, planted Emerald for the first time this year, last year and the few years before, I planted Clemson Spineless, hope I am not dissapointed with Emerald, as I have NO Clemson's planted at all this year. My first year here, I planted 6 yes SIX okra plants, I'll never forget, I was admiring the very lush garden of a neighbor of my MIL's , he's an older gentleman and I was so proud that I too had planted OKRA, he asked me how many plants I had, and I told him SIX...and he chuckled outloud and says "well you might be able to get a mess from them" I learned quickly, there was NO MESS of any kind with just six plants...the next year I planted 20 and even then never had enough to put any up...and it took a week to get a "mess" to cook up. this year I have planted 3 rows (15 feet each), I'm hoping this is enough :) I also have for the first time successfully grown garlic, I bought a mixed bag (she sent me a few of each of several different varieties) from a lady who sells on the farmers bulletin from Atlanta, I think I planted like 6 or 7 different types. they are all over my garden..cant wait another surprise that I just love are the multiplying onions. got free bulbs from someone on freecycle, and now I have more of them than I know what to do with.. last year I also for the first time successfully grew PEANUTS!! that was WAY COOL...harvested and put up a dozen gallon bag full of them. of course here in the south we boil them in salty water, yummy!! I have volunteers all over my garden!! I have enjoyed mustard greens and love having parsley in my garden...I found some growing in the cracks in my lower patio, I had let some in the flower beds go to seed, and I dont have the heart to pull them up!! And finally sweet potatoes! no hassle great reward!!

Dana - I have swollen buds also on MM. I was worried cuz the roots were so short. The other Peaces have some some big swollen buds also. I have about 40 roses arriving next month plus some other perennials. I'm planting a hillside so DH doesn't have to mow there. I'm lucky; have 2.5 acres...lots of room. I am getting Country Dancer also along with some other great Bucks. Yesterday was great outside - 69 degrees!; cut down all my clematis and cleaned out some hydrangea beds. Now talking snow again tonight and tomorrow. What a tease! Also forgot ...have lots of clematis to offer also. They can be white or purple..they spring up all over the place. -t

Posyplanter, Well, I am referring more in general to the type of soil but if you find a particular spot where they're happy, I think you could grow them there every year. In general, sweet potatoes are very disease-resistant and very few pests bother them in a home garden. So, I grow mine in one of two places (or, sometimes, in both those places) every year and don't really engage in crop rotation since there's little worry that either pests or diseases would build up in the soil. I add compost to the beds every fall/winter to put nutrition back into the soil, but since they're sweet potato beds and rich soil isn't needed/desirable for them, not too much compost....about an inch of compost goes into the sandy soil beds annually. In my case, I really couldn't rotate anyway. We have very thick and dense, brick-red clay that, even when well-amended, is too heavy for sweet potatoes. There is one narrow vein of sandy soil about 30' feet wide that cuts from north to south across our property and runs maybe 60'. Most of that area has trees in it, but I have carved out two small beds between those trees and my main vegetable garden and those beds are reserved for sweet potatoes. To rotate them, I'd have to move them to a raised bed of heavy, improved clay and I'd rather leave them in the sandy soil. I suppose if I ever have problems in the sandy soil, I'll have to either move them to clay the next growing season or skip growing them for a year. By the way, I have been in touch with my sweet potato slip provider this weekend and he tells me it has been a very bad year nationwide for planting sweet potatoes. Remember how wet last year was? Well, lots of commercial growers harvested the sweet potatoes just fine, but the potatoes held over to use as propagation stock for this year must have had either too high of a water content or were harboring some disease (commercial growers, because of monocropping, often see disease issues we home gardeners don't see). When the sweet potato slips were planted this spring, which also was abnormally wet in the sweet potato growing areas, many died and now sweet potato slips apparently are in short supply this year. That really makes me appreciate one of our local growers here in Oklahoma (Duck Creek Farms) even more because Gary did have sweet potato slips for sale this year so at least some of us were able to obtain some before we even knew they were in short supply nationwide. Sweet potatoes only store for maybe 2 to 3 months even in ideal conditions, so it is very difficult and a very complicated process for growers to keep sweet potato propagation stock alive from one fall to the following spring. Since our local grower is one of a small number of people seeking to bring back many heirloom varieties to the market here in the USA, it is especially important that he not lose his propagation stock. Sometimes, I think we home gardeners have it so easy...we buy stuff, plant it, grow it and harvest it and never realize the very hard work that is involved just in having something as 'simple' as sweet potato slips available for us to purchase. Seeing the struggles the commercial growers have gone through this spring with their sweet potato slips has given me a whole new appreciation for the fact that home gardeners like us can just buy slips and plant them. If we have to or want to, we can grow our own slips, but it is unlikely I'd be able to keep 20 heirloom varieties going over the winter every year without a greenhouse or something else. Dawn

I order mostly from Johnny's selected seeds but have also ordered from Totally Tomatoes, Park, Harris, Jungs, and Reimer. Reimer is one to stay as far away from as possible for multiple reasons. Regarding Andy's Asparagus, there is only one review for them on Garden Watchdog and it is negative. I also remember seeing some other bad reviews on them somewhere but can't remember where that was. My last asparagus order was for 2 different purple varieties of 2 year crowns from Nourse Farms in 2016 and I was very pleased. This will be the first year to harvest some. Debruyn seed has the best asparagus prices I've seen. I've ordered seed potatoes from them once and the quality was excellent but I've not ordered gus from them. You will want to wait until fall to plant garlic. There are several garlic vendors in the PNW you can order from and get seed garlic acclimated to your conditions. Fillaree farms is one that has a nice selection of varieties.