I am not one of those you have an outstanding offer to fill. Just wanted to say hi and welcome back. Glad to hear that you are feeling better and back to thinking about gardening. I have missed your postings and photos of your garden. Often look at old ones for inspiration. The hydrangea and solidago cuttings you sent me last spring grew well. Great bloom on the solidago. Thanks for sharing. Bobbie

Hi! I'm not far. I live in downtown West Palm Beach. Because I'm downtown, my lot is really tiny but I do have some plants to share. I know what you mean about wanting to share gardening adventures. My husband believes if it is a plant it should be cut, hard. I swear I can hear the screams. I'm not much of a gardener, but I have a lot of passion and I love all the great gardens posted on this site. Let me know if you would like anything I have. Check out my profile page under my trades. Julie in West Palm Beach

Try a posting again for more comments. Also look into Wisconin and Minnesota based growers. I assisted many people get started growing in 80's there and so it might be experiences there. As my work required me to focus on other R&D projects, Shiitake was taking off via Ag Extension Agents across the USA. Our lab used to send out 50 to hundreds of copies of a Forest Products Journal paper articke that we had on hand to help supply handout materials for workshops. By the time I switched projects we had fielded > 50,000 reprint requests. Humbling! I think there is now a free link posted for it now, along with the starting US Ag Agent contacts at that time, listed by state. I'm also seeing warm climate Hawaiian extension newspaper clippings over the last decade talking about similar cultivation workshops there. Shiitake Cultivation keeps being "rediscovered" in ever new locations. Why not? Tasty, valuable, has a local skills barrier helping protect from new competitors, snd healthy. Fungi Perfecti near Olympia and Shelton, WA is a great source of experience for Shiitake and other non-compost (direct converter) mushrooms. I've now migrated back from WI to WA now, using recruiting to finally get back home. But would much enjoy the chance to get back into the practical lab end of fungal cultivation. Know anyone in the greater Seattle/Tacoma area looking to scale up ANY commercially viable fungus? With my micobial, plant, and (bio)chemical training and hobby experience, large hydroponics, orchid seed and plant tissue culture labs are other viable options.

The forecasts behind the graphics haven't changed so I'm not even going to comment on the accuracy or otherwise. I'll just suggest that the aim of any improvements like this should be to offer more clear and more detailed information. I feel that the new graphics offer this potential but have been made more cluttered instead of more clear so that we can have moving raindrops and 3-D representations. We get ludicrous situations such as peering through a haze of raindrops falling on London to try and see whether the sun is supposed to be shining in Yorkshire. And I suspect there is some subtle distinction between different kinds of raindrops indicating steady rain or passing showers, and if not there should be. What's the point showing an precise blob of raindrops sitting exactly on Manchester if all it means is there is a 10% chance of a shower today? Seems to me like the whole thing is another dumbing down of a type that the BBC is getting better at all the time. Maybe we could have a "real" weather forecast on BBC2 ;)