I bought a coconut from a supermarket in Montreal Canada 3 weeks ago and didn't know whether I should eat it or try growing it. After almost a week I removed it from its plastic wrapping and gave it a shake listening to all its milk swishing around inside. I thought to myself.."how can I get this thing to grow without a husk???" First thing I did was soak it in very hot water everyday for 2 weeks. I would then remove it from sitting in water for up to 3 hours a day and place it inside a sealed plastic bag (to trick it into thinking the plastic bag was its husk) with lots of air inside. I then sat it with its 3 eyes pointed up inside the bag and mounted onto a coffee cup into a corner of the room. Everyday I would continue the hot water procedure and then put it back into its bag sitting on the coffee cup. After about a week of doing this 1 of the 3 flat eyes suddenly swelled up and popped out like a nipple. After a couple days of putting it into the hot water bath..suddenly (today) the nipple wood gave way and behind it was a white sprout like a potato's eye sprout. This is where the story ends because I'm going to plant it and watch what happens..but so far my "grocery store" coconut is showing promise. The idea is to trick it into believing that it has its husk by placing it into a sealed tight plastic bag and letting the humidity increase around it and kick it into action. I will keep you all posted! :-)

Caroline ~ So glad you did not have any damages or flooding. We and you and others did need rain, but come on, enough is enough already. The tornadoes are the really scary part to me, although, the whole thing is scary, winds and possible flooding or other damages. YIKES! We checked Gustav again this morning and so far he's on the south side of Cuba and his track is westerly. Let's hope he stays that way. The fear of these storms really gets to all of us who wait to see where they are headed and then sometimes have to go through them. All we can do is pray and hope for the best, and go with the flow. I hope everyone survives these storms with minimal to no damages. FlowerLady

Well said minibim. I never take these storms lightely but I seem to have developed a 6th sense as to whether they are going to be bad or much to nothing. I am so used to afternoon thunderstorms where we sometmes have microburst and wind gusts in excess of 50 mph. I have been through so many storns and even sat through one in a rente mustang. My mother and I had gone to a football game in New Orleans and hurrican Helana had been fickle and was running up and down the coast. We enjoyed the game and spent some time in the French Quarter when we heard that hurrican Helena was headed straight towards Slidell where were wre staying. We were in an interior room and would have been safer staying there but my Mom wanted to get out of town. We goton I-10 and headed home. The rain got worse and worse and finally it got to a point where I could barely see the road and the wind was pushing the car around. The radio person stated that the hurricane was coming ashore between Biloxi and Gulfport. I looked up and saw the road sign that said Gilfport next three exits. We sat the fist part of the storm under I-10 next to a giy in a VW. I was never so happy as when this big semi pulled up behind us. The both decided to turn around and face the other direction and they told me to make sure the gust was not coming when we made the turn or it would flip the car. We were having 160 mph gusts. They left me furing the eye so I got back on the interstate and I was going to take the interstate up north. There was a semi flipped on its side and another on top of a van. I got down onto the other road and realized that I was going to hit he front wall of the storm. You have never seen anyone back up a ramp so fast in your life. We got to the next exit just as the storm hit again and took shelter under the roof of a convenience stor with three oil changing pits, etc. The building was between us and the ocean. I looked over and saw the gas pump handled blowing in the wind and hoped they had cut the gas to the pumps off. I got out and ran around and took pictures of the wind blowing sideways until I saw a tornado coming that lifted the roof off of the gas station half a block away. My mother is now wishing we were back at the hotel. After the storm passed we headed towards home and saw numerpus twisters forming and still do not know how we missed geting sucked up into one that passed right over us and touched down on the other side of the road. I knowthe angels had their protective wings over us. I know the power of these storms and I respect them, but I have learned not to stress out over them. If thre seems to be a truly bad one heading our way I pack Lee up and we head out of town. Disney does make us come in sometimes when we should not be on the roads as the govrnor asks but it is our job and we do have guests to tend to and take care of. Disney has rideout teams that take care of th park and guests when things get really bad and they also take care of some of the cast members who have nowhere to go. They let me stay in one of the resorts for $8 a night when Charley came through. So I watch and wait and then make decisions. The truly bad storms are generally predictable though we have had several that were fast and deadly. Lee's idiot children refuse to leave Key West as they say they are protected by an angel. They even drove down the road during the eye of a storm when you had to guess where the road was. So it is appropriate to do the basics and have that kit ready 365 as hurricanes are not out only disasters here. We alo sit on an earthquake plate and I have experienced two small tremors. We have an inactive volcano in the north Florida area that is so small that no one can locate it anymore and we have lightening, tornadoes, microbust and nasty thunderstorms. That is the price we pay for living in paradise. I hope everyone is okay and I will start a chech in thread. Linda

My garden is fine. I SFG in raised beds and the only thing I (might) have lost is marigolds. They are pretty well sprawled out right now. My Cavendish Banana which I planted in July did very well in the storm, as did my gardenia and butterfly bushes. I have lost all three of my surviving tomato plants, but they were about done anyway. They will go into compost tomorrow, along with all of my squashes: cucumber, pumpkin and watermelon. All three are stripped of leaves, although I think they lost the fight because of the squash bugs I've been fighting all summer. My roses are great. I have no clue what kind they are, but they were over 8 feet tall before hubby had to cut them to lower the awnings over the front windows. However, they seem to have liked the haircut..and it kept the wind from uprooting them. We didn't have any flooding on our lot, thank goodness. We did have about 3 feet of water in our roads for 3 days, but someone finally found the part to open the locks, so we're dry now. I posted pics of the flooding earlier, but never thought I'd be so darn glad to see blacktop! In other good news, we were lucky all around. We only lost power for about 6 hours total, and not all in one chunk of time. Our phones and cable/internet stayed active throughout the mess. And, everyone here was able to work even during the aftermath. We've been blessed, while other people in our county suffered complete flooding of their homes. I'm thankful that my garden gets to be my biggest worry right now. :)