Hello everyone. Bare with me I am new at this. I am getting to the age that going to work at a factory is becoming very ,oh what is that word sickening. But I love growing things. Like flowers and a garden and anything that looks pretty. And I know it means longs hours and hard work. But that is OK as long I love what I am doing. So on with the show. I need some help. I have a small piece of property its about 1/2 acre that's clears, and half that's not. just needs to be plowed and taken care of.. And I have done a lot of research on what to grow to make a profit. And what seems easy to sell. If I am wrong please tell me. Since I live in north eastern Penn. Close to the New York state line. And I am looking for what type of garlic will grow the best in cold to hot temperature. I have thought about it and decides to start a small farm. I am sick and so is my wife. And the idea of having the government taking care of me. Wants me to run out the front door screaming for help. So my question after all that what type of garlic should I start with, what type of soil do I need, Is there any special licenses do I need. OR do I just buy a variety soak them and plant them and wish for the best . Like I have heard elephant ear has there own problems and people have a hard time growing them. So I am looking for a person or people that can help me start in the right directions. What my goal is, is to be up and planting this fall. So I can start looking towards doing this full time. And start spending time with me wife and just start living. I hope some people understand what I am talking about.

Jean - I hope you meant the 25th (the Wake Forest market is only on Saturdays). Lets aim for Saturday Sept 1st. This next weekend is a big grilling festival at the market and I need to haul as many sellable plants as possible to make up for the lackluster sales these past couple of hot and dry marketdays. I will also go through all my various stashes of plants to find more goodies by Fall Swap. And next spring I should have even more after sowing seeds all winter. I have Rue. But the caterpillars on it are eating it down to the nub so I doubt I will get seeds. I plan on finding some seed somewhere and growing a bunch of it, so at some point I will have some available. I do have some parsley potted up and some Agastache (Hyssop). If you find any of the annual butterfly weed (Asclepias currasavica)(sp?), I have been able to over winter the roots and got bigger plants the next spring. I simply dig them up after first frost and pot them up and store them out of the way. They are easy from seed also. Pentas are a great nectar plant and they are easy from cuttings but they won't overwinter outside. Good luck

Over here, they actually chop down all conifers in mixed forests (not in all forests!!). So even if it is not a monoculture, which is the pinnacle of worthlessness they think. How about this one: heath is only possible over here because of human interference. Prior to 1100 AD there was no heath nor inland sand dunes. These are deserts caused by the same overgrazing iwe see in the Sahel region. Now what is modern? Chop down forests people started to grow on them, in fact erase the fertile layer that has developed since and change it back into a desert....It happens all around over here. Right, and we are going to tell Africans not to chop down their woods for their (economic) reasons? Anyway: how natural is that? How native can you consider this interference? These double standards are a second point I dislike. Humans are not natural unless they do something some ecologists like (not all ecologists are like that of course). Why do we have so many birds over here in Holland? Because all woods were cut down, now we have some sort of wet prairie where birds flourish. But only for as long as humans chop down new trees or big, nonnative (!!) browsers do so. These browsers were introduced and can do so because there (well for the time being) are no wolves to prevent it. Studies in Yellowstone have shown that reintroducing wolves leads to fast reforestation as browsers are hunted again. The reintroduction of wolves in the Netherlands has been halted because of....wolves would kill big browsers, which was considered bad for birds....Aha: that is very natural indeed....Well, the wolve is at our doorstep now,lynx is already back. Foxes, which have no real negative impact on birds btw are also shot because they could harm birds...Etcetcetc. I feel there is a lot of disprespect to life of trees and animals and native ones are overrated. What started the deforestation in Europe first? Right: just chopping down woods because that was what they are here for......Why not teach children that all life has value, not only among humans there is equality but all living things have to be respected and can't be killed just like that, surely not because some sort of doctrine. Look at the Grey Squirrel in England, they even bang the little ones heads against trees and kill the parents by trampling on them. Or shoot parenting birds and leave the young on the nest to starve. Of course this conflicts with animal right groups and in my opinion righfully so. Or giving grey squirrels warfarine, which cause them to have internal bleedings (in the brains) and again a horrible death. I am sorry, but again some sort of doctrine actually sells killing as something necessary, to save red squirrels. Why are red squirrels better or worse then grey ones? Are whites better than blacks? Why? Should blacks stay in Africa or be reintroduced into their native habitats if this could be possible? I think not, but may some one can give some good reason why it is different.. Amongst ourselves, humans, we have had our fair share of war based on doctrines. Just remember a part where some race was considered awfull and killed by the millions because of some doctrine. Sorry to get carried away a bit, but this is truely what I think. Morally I see no difference in disproprotionate value adding to animals based on nativeness or nonnativeness. It is artificial, it makes the animals (and trees) first class and second class "citizens" and then, like many other doctrines it opens up the way to eradicate them. I want to stop this, just looking for the right tone I think ;-)) Conferjoy: thanks for the link. Could you tell me what they do?

Halloween Hangman Day 2: In case you missed it, here are the rules: 1) Each person can guess one letter per day (use GW time stamps -- EST). Once the body is complete, there will be no more letter guesses allowed. The hangman has 7 body parts, so choose letters wisely. First come, first served on letter guesses. 2) Each person can take one guess at the word per day. You do not have to guess the word at the same time you guess the letter. Words will all relate to Halloween. Sometimes it will be a garden/Halloween mash. Ex. Ghost + Ghost Pepper = Ghost Pepper. 3) This game will run Mon - Fri. I will post at different times each day to give everyone an equally random shot. By Fri, the person with the most points wins. Your prize will be sent out in your seed pack. (Due to GW's weirdness I had to use a dash to represent a space). Current Point Total: pmb2005 -- 1pt _______ I.............) I............ I............. I............. I............ I _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _