In previous years I have coddled my tomato babies and used different contraptions to protect them from inclement weather. I usually have great success. This year, I can barely spare 5min away from my baby girl to sneak into the garden to see how the maters are doing. They aren't doing so great. So, from my original list, I have had to do a few replacements with whatever I could find from the "big box" stores or local plant sales. 1.Great White (need a beefsteak) UPDATE - DEAD 2.Purple Calabash (hoping for taste since I liked purple prince) UPDATE - 1 barely alive (Jbox) 3.Green Sausage (novelty) UPDATE - DEAD 4.Purple Prince (LOVE the taste) UPDATE - DEAD 5.Polish Linguisa (need a paste!) UPDATE - Pretty sure it will be dead when I get home today. 6.Black Cherry (hoping for taste and early) UPDATE - Really DEAD 7.Sungold (last year sucked, give it another chance) UPDATE - One of 4 tomatoes I had in 2 J-Boxes(Josho) that is alive 8.Stupice (early) UPDATE - Not sure actually. Suckers are forming where the original branches were sunburned and windwracked (Jbox) 9.SilveryFirTree (for the foliage) UPDATE - I give it 45% survival chance at this stage 10.Oxheart (need a regular red!) UPDATE - ALIVE! One of 4 in jbox. Managed to find - Red Zebra - Amish Paste Box Stores - Lemon Boy - Sweet Million Will probably get something like beefsteak etc. .Will cross my fingers and pray the rest survives!

Will do, Karen. If anyone else would like a plain text version of the Composite List e-mailed to him/her, just let me know. If your computer can handle it, you may also download a copy of the Composite List in a variety of formats, including plain text. I was hoping the early start and longer period to sign up and post/revise a list would take stress out of something that is supposed to be fun. There's still a week left to sign up and post or make changes to "seeds wanted" lists!

Hi Sharon, Let me try to clarify... These points are intended for general viewing; they are not just responses to your postings. Viola papilionacea is a defunct name, though it still crops up fairly often, probably due to folks referring to older reference material, or to other folks who did so... Use V. sororia instead. Priceana is a form of V. sororia, and preferably should be used as such - ie. Viola sororia f. priceana rather than Viola sororia priceana, and certainly not Viola sororia 'Priceana'. (There are italics issues here, but this forum does not allow me to use italics.) Albiflora is also a form of V. sororia. Where you have seen reference to V. papilionacea f. albiflora, it should be V. sororia f. albiflora. I do not know what the official Latin diagnosis of f. albiflora entails, but I would guess it describes the plant as having pure white flowers. My plant was certainly like that. In practice, the name probably gets applied to many individuals with largely-white flowers. The blue centre of V. sororia f. priceana is variable in size, from plant to plant. Hence the boundary between f. priceana and f. albiflora is partly a matter of opinion. That is, how much white is needed before you call it f. albiflora rather than f. priceana? Opinions vary. Vv. sororia and striata are very different. Don't go just on pictures of the flowers. Perhaps the most obvious, and taxonomically significant, difference is that V. sororia has no aerial stems (just a rhizome), whereas V. striata has stems. Also, V. striata never has any blue in its flowers, and is a creamy colour, whereas the white in V. sororia flowers, of whatever form, is never than creamy. The stipules are very different, too. Sharon: You say you have "white violets with purple veining". There are several species which fit that description. If you can post some images here (flower front and side, stem/base of plant, leaves), we may be able to pin them down. Meanwhile http://plants.usda.gov/cgi_bin/topics.cgi?earl=advquery/adv_query.html will allow you to list which species of Viola are recorded from New Hampshire. Supposedly, you can constrain the list to those with white flowers, but that is not working properly. You should, however, be able to constrain it to your county (which I don't know). The white ones for New Hampshire as a whole include: Vv. - blanda - lanceolata - macloskeyi (may be a mistake, I think - they may mean V. pallens) - primulifolia - renifolia - striata Cheers, Mike Here is a link that might be useful: Earlier discussion of Vv. sororia/papilionacea on this forum

My banana is not only doing better but much better! He seems to be extremely happy now! He's got his 7th leaf coming out! (Ignore the boxes. They are critical to maintaining his happiness, I swear!) So spring seems to have come absurdly early. I'm both really excited and enjoying this warmth and really really worried. My peach is blooming 3 weeks earlier than last year. As well as my nectarines. Ralph, remember I had a bunch of baby purple leafed peaches? Well I guess they're old enough to bloom too! Completely unexpected! The ones I potted up but didn't bring to plant swap (potted same time as plant swaps) didn't bloom so I guess they got too much shock from being transplanted, so whoever got them last time it probably won't this year, but next year seems likely! But most worrisome of all... 3 of the 6 blueberries I have are in bud, and one of them has started blooming... I know there are various types that bloom at different times of the year but this seems absurd! Of course after checking out weather for the week looks like we're going to get a frost! Obviously! I just hope I get SOME peaches... :( Anyone know what this is? Its in a few spots of the garden so I think its a pack of bulbs I got and planted and forgot about... but they're anemones right? Just that most of the pictures I looked up have black insides not yellow. In addition to all those... I see that my pink banana (musa velutina) is coming up. My black magic taro, midori taro, black and blue salvia, purple and black salvia, my crinium, all those irises I got from the swap, the canna lilies you gave me Ralph, my candy lily, and my toad lily (which ALSO seems to have spread some! there's a sprout about a foot away from the main body! WHICH IS AWESOME). I'm just worried that some of these are tender and shouldn't be arriving so quickly =___=; Like the taros and bananas... But some like this quince is perfectly fine to bloom now. No fruit expected so go enjoy yourself lil quincey! What sites do you guys use to check for frost? What's your assumed last frost date around here? Do you use the 50% value or wait longer? As for the plant swap coming this spring... (when is it again?) I may have gotten a little excited with seeds: Of the things I should have extras of to bring... some cardoons and artichokes (started in beginning of January so would be nice and ready for spring), some edible hibiscus (Roselles), cape gooseberries, naranjilla, and maybe some others... have 27 varieties of tomatoes which I need to separate the seedlings for and throw into other pots so we'll see how much space I have for spares :3 Ralph, the coleus you gave me at last swap is doing great btw! I gave him a haircut and making some more cuttings of him... should have some cuttings from various salvias as well (although I'll be honest... I let too many of them sit in tray of water too long and got root rot :( whoops... added a bunch of pebbles/stones to them now so pots sit above the drained out water so hopefully the rest survive .___. ) Also, if there was anything anyone wanted from these seeds https://imgur.com/a/trPlW I can throw in a pot and start for you guys before the next swap :) And Karen, you are right. There has been a lot going on outside, although to be fair right now its getting confused with all this warmth. I do need to get myself some more winter plants though! Like lenten roses. And yes... the greenhouse... I'm debating going halfway and getting a quick cheap(ish) throwup structure to enjoy now and then later getting a fullblown one (...maybe I'll get a different house w/ more land... hahaha.) or just going all out now... I do kinda wanna do everything which tends to be warmer/humid environments but that could get really expensive in winter so still debating on what the focus should be... did you buy a prefabricated one or completely create it yourself? Any recommendations for which sites to look at pre-fab ones?