Do I need more than a sunny window? Yes you do.;) Check out the Growing from Seed forum here. But honestly it is really too late to start peppers from seed now in your zone - especially if you just now order them and then wait till they arrive. Peppers are started 8-12 weeks prior to planting out. So it will likely have to be transplants this year. I am pretty sure it has to so with our heat, humidity and warm nights Possible but keep in mind that many of us successfully share those growing conditions so I would still give some consideration to the other possible causes of your problem - things like timing of your feeding can make a crucial difference as can mulch or a different planting location. Dave

All I really grow anymore are Darlingtonia's, a Ping and a few Sars. I have some wild taken photos on my Flickr page. I guess that I should take some recent photos of my group! I grew up near California Carnivores and can't say enough good things about Peter and Marilee! I used to obsesively lurk there and go through everything every chance I got. That was when they were located at the Mark West Vineyards. Even then, their plants were spectacular and since the move to a larger space, it's breathtaking. I moved and hadn't been there in years and yet they always remembered me. I even brought wild collected Nepenthes seeds back from Kalimantan for them. A few years ago, I was showing a visiting friend the Giant Redwoods and heard someone call my name in the giftshop. It was Marilee and I was really surprised that she remembered what I looked like! (Small world!)Although I had made a stop there once on my way to Oregon, I hadn't seen her in several years. Next time I get down that way, I really have to stop in. The last time, I must ahve looked a mess. I had a truck and horsetrailer and had been drivin' all night! ;~) The point is...great people, great plants and have I mentioned great people? Scott

Thanks Terrene-- I didnt have the coral nymph last year and really missed it . It just sets things off. Tried yvonnes one year didnt do well for some reason. Im trying bee balm and cardinal flower queen victoria and the native one this year. jguard--- you need to resize your images either in a program or photobucket. I use a free program that is fast called faststone photo resizer to resize then send to photobucket. On faststone there is a place called advanced settings which will allow you to set the size. Either 640 x 480 or the next size bigger would be good for this forum.

I love making soil. I love it even more when someone else is doing most of the work for me. I'm itching to start some spring planting in my tiny garden, but it's technically still a bit early (our last frost date is supposed to be around the 18th or so, but these days who even knows) and I'm impatiently waiting for the contractors to show up and replace my rotted fence before I can do any planting in the back half where the pile of rock mulch over weed cloth used to be. The fence would have rotted anyway, but the bottom of it was completely eaten away where the rock mulch was piled against it. I have already put down a tiny new tree (Amelanchier x "Autumn Brilliance") which arrived bare root and needed to go in the ground ASAP, but it's not next to the fence, so it should be fine as long as the fence guys don't step on the 18 inch high forked stick which, seen with my eye of faith, is already a handsome small patio tree. The tree went in the spot where the old, scrawny, unhealthy cherry plum used to be, where I have been piling vermicompost and leaves ever since last summer. I didn't amend the planting hole at all - just dug and filled in. Enough leaf mold and vermicompost just fell into the hole to make me feel fine about the start my new tree's roots are getting. Anyway, the "someone else" who is working for me outside is a healthy passel of earthworms, which I can see out there every time I pull back last autumn's leaf mulch, which I diligently collected from the sidewalk in front of my row house and brought out back. Even if I can't set to work yet, I like knowing that they're hard at it. I've seen some of my red wigglers who rode out from my indoor worm bin, and at least three separate species of native earthworms: slow gray short guys, some really huge red nightcrawler types, and a longer, thinner, super-active wiggly worm that's new to me. I've also scattered out some seeds and grains for the sparrows and squirrels, inspired by some videos of composting chickens I've watched on Youtube: so there's been lots of pecking and scratching and digging going on in the layer of leaves, which is both fun to watch and will serve to further shred down the leaves for incorporation in the soil. When I do get to the planting along the back fence, I'll try to remember to post a soil pic as a "before and after" to the one at the start of this topic.