First, be advised that I had very good success when I collected about 30 acorns and first did a float test with them, before drying them and planting them in pots. Since you have only a few, still do the float test with them and only plant in pots the acorns that you discover can sink to the bottom. As soon as you remove the ones which have sunk; dry them in a paper towel. If you want your acorns to grow in forest area, or if you live in a more country type setting, then you can ignore the following suggestions. But if you live in a neighborhood housing addition, then it would be better to at least consider implementing the following advice. Plant them in a pot that you cover just as esh-ga described. Then simply set the pot along the east side of your house where they will benefit from late to mid-morning sun and be fully shaded by 1pm and throughout the rest of the afternoon. Or you could set the pot under some mature, well spread, shrubs which would allow only dappled afternoon sun or shade to reach the surface of the pots you might place beneath. Then just let nature do the rest. If you find you need to water those shrubs at any time, the pots will also receive enough moisture from that or from any rain events. That should be all they need. Simply leave them alone and wait till next spring when other invasive trees that you see have sprouted in your landscape beds, and which you would normally pull up and discard. At that time or shortly there after you should begin to see sprouts growing up from your previously planted acorns. Any acorns that do not sprout, might simply need to remain in the pot for another year before they would be ready to sprout. So after you have established your acorns planted in pots and located them under the shrubs or up near the east side of your house, then begin efforts to create what will be a nursery bed, for you to use to plant any of those acorns you find have sprouted and grown to about 3 inches tall next spring. The raised nursery bed could be small but at least raised 24 inchs tall. I mean, the one you make and have filled with lots of native soil and a good percentage of humus. Watch to see if any weeds grow in that bed, and if they do, simply dig the weeds up before they go to seed. Immediately then, turn those weeds upside down so all their green growth can end up being covered with dirt. Some of the roots left sticking up will need to be cut off and removed, but some also will be from weeds whose roots will simply dry out, die, enough to naturally break apart. In each following spring, spade and turn the soil in your nursery bed again; in time for you to plant there, any new sprouts your discover. That is, once the acorns you planted in the pots have sprouted and grown to about 3 to 4 inches tall. At that time, simply lift the sprout out of the pot, while being careful to try and not break up the handfull of potting soil in which you find the root is growing. Also try to avoid breaking off the acorn you find the little sprout has grown out from. Once you have accomplished this, without delay, take the handfull of potting soil which is encasing the sprout's roots and gently plant your little sprout in your previously prepared nursery bed. It is best to plant the sprout at a level where the attached acorn is just at ground level, and will be covered slightly with a little shredded bark or maybe some chopped up oak leaves that you saved from the previous fall. It is a good idea to cover your nursery bed also with fine mesh wiring, to keep hungry critters from eating the young tender sprouts or their food source acorns from, which your sprouts are growing. Let your sprouts grow and make certain they are kept watered properly throughout the followig growing season. Once they go dormant at the end of that growing season, your sprouts should be hardened up enough, by late winter just prior to them breaking leaf bud, for you to dig them up. Be careful to not break off the tender young roots, and make certain to dig deep enough to get as much of what should be a well develped young tap root. At that time, since the sapling tree should not have broken dormancy yet, you can rinse away the dirt from the roots. Then lay them in, and cover their roots in, a mostened paper towel. Once this is completed, go directly to plant your sapling tree into its permanant growing spot. Even then cage the young tree to prevent hungry critters from damaging it. After this your tree should adapt, break dormancy, and quickly grow to be a nice, 1 to 2 foot tall whip form tree; over that upcoming growing season. It may take two or more years after that for the tree to have developed a nice enough branching structure and thickness of trunk to finally become a nice young tree that is well established and could be considered to have a nicely structured little canopy. If you have the time and patience to do all this, great. Otherwise, it would be better for you to simply go purchase the size and shape of oak tree you want from a reputable nursery.

We also love to eat the blossoms! We try to plan a dinner party to coincide with bloom time each spring and serve each person a blossom floating on a cold soup. I love them on cucumber-yogurt-garlic soup, or here is a fun recipe for a cold asparagus soup my hubby dreamed up: http://www.hungryagain.net/?p=43 Notice the chive blossom in the picture? That is actually a half blossom, floating cut side down because our dinner was a little early that year. I love the potato salad idea; we will definitely try that one this year!

Terriks, you did a great job. I know the feeling of waiting on my hubby to get things done. But I can't complain. He does so much around the house, I certainly can't expect everything done right now. Not that I wouldn't like that... Do you have girlfriend that would come over and help you change them out? It's actually quite easy. One of you goes to the basement to turn off the breaker while the other uses a tester to make sure power if off before you change them out. I've hung ceiling fans before by myself, so this can't be too hard. Just a bit scary.

At what point do you have trouble? I am so computer challenged and sort of accidentally figured it out and now can do it easily. I'd be glad to help if I can. Here's how I do it: I send a picture from cell phone to photobucket, they assign you an e-mail address to make that happen When the photo appears I click on it and then out to the side there is that HTML code, click on that and it will change color sort of for a nanosecond and say "copied" then I go back to the message I want to insert the photo in then go to "edit" on the tool bar, click, in the drop down menu and hit "paste" then it prints in the message a really long line of numbers and characters but this is your photo ~you will see the photo when you: Click on "preview message" if you like the way it looks then you Click on "submit message" In other words, I have to open two windows. The first one is Gardenweb where I have already started a message and have the cursor stationed at the window where I am typing the message ready to insert the photo. Ok while this window is open and ready for a photo paste I open the second window and go to photo bucket, choose the photo, click on the HTML cold, it copies it and then I click back over to the garden web window and click the cursor for the big long link to appear which becomes the picture when you click "preview". To post a link go to the box under your message "Optional Link URL: type in your link and be sure to use http://www etc. then whatever else is involved in the link address. Works like a charm. You will name the link in the next box. I know that photobucket was changing over to beta and I could no longer upload photos to Gardenweb. I switched back to the old way and now everything is fine.