I have lots of specialty seeds to trade. I am looking for these items, my seed list isn't up to date, but my seed files are, let me know your interest and I will let you know what I have in veggies/edible lanscape to trade.

Terri, Thank you for your reply and I have added your favorite garlic to my list for next year. I received an email from one of the CF members who very kindly sent me a wonderful link that I had not found in all my garlic searches. I was blown away by all the different varieties of garlic available! I have already placed my order for this year and it will be shipped this week. I look forward to having really fresh garlic for the very first time. I hope it is as juicy as the beautiful garlic that ann-t posted earlier. Jessica, I have several times planted some of the sprouted garlic and was disappointed when it just disappeared never to be seen again. I was surprised that even the stuff I tossed onto the compost never grew as I have had herb, flower and tomato plants pop up in the compost. I finally decided I needed to get a totally different kind of garlic if I wanted to grow and harvest it successfully. I posted here because I read the cooking forum on a fairly regular basis as I donÂt get to spend much time on the forums and I spend even less time on the garden side. Most of my computer time is at night and it is limited. Today I just have about 30 mins for this gardenweb visit before going to work. So the cooking forum is about the only one I visit. Thank you both for your replies. Kat

I got LOS last spring. Its a grafted plant. It didnt bloom much last year. She grew a lot though. This spring I espaliered her on a piece of wire fencing strung between a few metal t-posts to try and get her canes more horizontal. That did the trick because she has been blooming in regular flushes this year. She is much larger now that in the spring when I took these photos. She is in mostly full sun and in a black plastic nursery pot still lol. She likes it that way!! There is a tree that casts shade on the far side one end of the plant, really late in the day about 4pm (left side of the photo). The majority of the plant (about 3/4th of it, including its pot, gets full sun All day.

I'm up on the Caprock, just east of Lubbock. I grow lots of alliums. Chives, garlic chives, elephant garlic, Egyptian walking onions all do well for me, though I rarely eat the garlic chives and elephant garlic. My experience with potato onions is that they produce lots of very small bulbs that we don't really use. Other far southern growers have reported the same results. Kind of the same with every shallot variety that I've tried. In the onion department, I do very well with the intermediate day onions from Dixondale Farms, especially Candy and Superstar. Even the long day Red River performs well for me. We have such intense late freezes here, sometimes onion killing single digits the first week of March, that I have to plant the short day onions too late to really get a good harvest, though I do plant Southern Belle for a very early and tasty harvest of mid-size onions. I used to plant two varieties from seed in the fall for overwintering; Desert Sunrise from Johnny's and the widely available Walla Walla Sweet. I was usually successful with overwintering them, but I gave it up in favor of the ease of using the more expensive transplants from Dixondale. Garlic is one of my favorite things to grow and eat. I have been growing and saving my own planting stock of a locally grown California Early for over eight years. It is very productive here. The rest of my lineup is Cuban Purple ( a beautiful purple red wrapped Creole with larger cloves than the other Creole I tried-Ajo Rojo); Mild French ( a Texas heirloom silverskin with larger cloves than the first silverskin I tried-S&H Silverskin); and Early Red Italian-very similar to California Early, except a few days later and a red tint to the wrappers. These last three came from Filaree Farms up in Washington state and after three years are beginning to settle down and adjust to their new home. Several years ago, I abandoned Inchelium Red, but I didn't give it a fair trial. When I started growing garlic, I planted the last week of September following the advice of Bob Anderson at Gourmet Garlic Gardens in Bangs, Texas. All went well for a few years, but then we had a series of winter in which we had a very cold spell (lows in the teens or single digits) in November or early December and it badly damaged the California Early that sprouts early and makes a lot of vigorous top growth early. I changed my planting date to the first week of November and no problems since. The earlier date would probably work for you. I like Forever Yong's selection of garlic. Another way to find locally adapted garlic is to go your local farmer's market and sample what is offered and get a start of what you like. As for the native, Allium drummondii, I find the bulbs small, hot and bitter-basically inedible, though it is a pretty wildflower or garden subject. Good luck with your allium adventure. Many are very well adapted to this area and they provide a lot of interest before the typical warm season vegetables get ready and year around flavor for the kitchen. KH