Hi there! I'd love to trade with you :) I have onion seeds, crookneck and straightneck yellow squash AND Dill's Atl Pumpkin seeds, another variety of large pumpkin AND the lumina pumpkin :) I also have some great watermelons and unusual types of tomatoes. I would LOVE some of those ruffled daffodil bulbs, pink delight butterfly bush, small orange 'maple leaf' morning glory, candyturt (tuft? lol), purple columbine, white W/ purple center datura, and golden chain tree. Please let me know if you'd like to work out a trade. I'm sure I can come up with enough to make it an even trade, and throw in a few bonus seeds too :) Thanks, Wendy / sassybutterfly_2008

Hi! I like dogpaws chamomile tea idea to use as a soil treatment to prevent damping off in young seedlings. I have read that too, but, fortunately, have not had much of a problem, probably because I use a special no-soil seedling mix like PRO-MIX for germinating those seeds that I start early inside. Most of my veggies, basils and other annual herbs, are direct seeded into the garden--so much easier, but I do sacrifice having an earlier crop... If I do have a damping off problem, I'll probably try the chamomile tea first because it's something that I have in my kitchen, even in early spring, and by June my chamomile is blooming in the garden. I assume that you'd use the dried blossoms to make the tea,but think you could probably use bought chamomile tea bags,for the soil soak. I pick the blossoms and dry them myself-- such a nice appley smell--as that's what I use for tea, (and I used to use as a hair rinse, but I've given up on that now that the gray hairs are overtaking the red ones!) Did you know that the old herbalists called the annual chamomile the "plants' physician"? That's why I grow it as a companion plant in my veggie garden... Re. the mushrooms in the seedling and other pots: I second or third the others--don't worry about it, unless they endanger the other plants, so just keep picking them out...

Hostanista, I purchased Neptune and Irish Luck both this past year, both were very impressive with lovely ruffling in 1gal pots, and held up well throughout the season with no difficulties. Alas, Niagara Falls has never done it for me, and I don't think I like Bridal Falls any better (bad girl, eh, as I grew up in the Niagara area!). Spartacus has been at the top of my list since I saw a photo of Don's a few months ago, so has Rubies and Rufffles, and American Choo Choo looks quite intriguing as well, so yes it is on my list too. I found it a little difficult to source, but Hosta Choice has it for I think $25. It is a non-registered sport of Choo Choo Train from Wade. HC also has Spartacus and Fleet Week mentioned above by BCHosta. It might be in the best interests of your (our) ahem, obsession, to check them out! Have fun!

Thanks snidely. I think mushroom gathering is a sort of slippery slope, with morel mushrooms being the "gateway drug." They are so easy to conclusively identify and are delicious, but they are only available picked in the wild, and only found for a couple weeks out of the year. So you find them, enjoy them, and then wait an entire year for them to return. All the time being tempted and taunted by other more plentiful and more prolific mushrooms. I think the couple you reference likely had success, studied more, learned more, had more success, and became more confident of their identifying skills, and moved step-by-step away from the safe and easy mushrooms into the larger, trickier mushroom families. Until at last they became just a smidge too confident. In elementary school I remember reading a book on mushroom identification, and in the "about the author" section it noted that the book was published posthumously because the the author -- a renowned expert on mushroom identification -- had died from mushroom poisoning.