If you or a friend has a Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog, look in there. It has great growing information including a "germination guide" for most veggies. It graphs the optimum temps for germination and shows a seed photo for MANY veggies....not parsnips, though. I haven't seen this information on their website. You may want to request a catalog just for the growing info and germination guides. A google image search gave this parsnip seed image...just page down a bit in the blog. (see below) Parsnips are outbreeding plants that are insect pollinated. They can cross with other parsnip varieties and with wild parsnips that grow in many areas. Some parsnip seeds are sold that are F1 hybrids. Yours will not produce true to type if they were a hybrid variety or if they crossed with wild parnips in the area. They may or may not produce something that is acceptable to you. Me, well, I'd probably grow them out if I had space. Maybe plant some known seed, also, if great parsnips were important to me. The book Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth is great to look at if you are saving seeds. I borrowed one a few time from the library and just last week received my own copy as a gift :) Here is a link that might be useful: Parsnip seeds, scroll down

I think it must be Houttuynia cordata (Giap ca in Vietnamese) in particular the green variety (although the Chameleon Plant also has the "fishy" smell). Quite easy to strike from cuttings from the Asian food stores but often sold as a ground cover in nurseries. Much harder to eradicate from the garden once you get it growing... Here is a link that might be useful: Houttuynia cordata

It's that time of years again for my sawtooth coriander to bolt with seed. It looks like it will be about 3 more weeks before they are ready to ship. They are still free to anyone needing seeds for only a single stamp for postage. Also, I have some small starter plants that I can send one of for postage of 3.00 anywhere in the lower 48 states. I have seeds from last year that should still be good if anyone needs them sooner. My germination success rate is 80+ success, but, any of the seeds do take at least 4 weeks to germinate. Once germinated you CANNOT KILL THEM LOL. I mailed some plants out and they got lost in the mail for about a week or two... once they finally arrived... they still survived. My mailing address is posted a few times above and the email add is still the same. Cheers !!

I highly recommend Horehound. It is a very bitter medicinal herb, generally recognized as useful in bronchial conditions. It likes a very well-drained position, and grows best for me in above-ground pots. It needs protection from faster growing plants--it is OK near things like Thyme and the smaller forms of Sage, but definitely not the Mints. Valerian is useful for nervous conditions, and has a fragrant inflorescence. It grows fairly tall but is an attractive plant. Comfrey is pretty close to being a rank weed similar to Mullein but I like to use it in places that would otherwise attract true weeds. It is a bully and will grow straight up at first, then let its stalks fall down, shading out anything in a 3 to 4 foot diameter. It can be used externally for injuries. Skullcap is also a rather attractive plant with interesting flower stalks...it has grown well for me and even reseeded itself lightly. Feverfew is good for migraine headaches, and is a small and rather attractive fern-like leaved little daisy-type plant that grows in attractive clumps. It works by doing something irreversible to smooth muscle, so should be used with caution. There are many medicinal herbs that treat similar conditions, so it's really more practical to try to discover the ones that do best in your area, for the conditions you want, and try to grow those. If you ask in the forums for your area, posters can tell you what has done well for them in that zone. Also, some really good medicinal herbs are either so large that you wouldn't want them to share a bed with the others, or so tiny that they really do better with the protection of their own pot.