Karen, that's the first blooms I've had in several years with gazania. The rabbits go crazy for it. Now if I could plant a bed of just gazania and the rabbits would stay there, I'd be happy to grow them for them. There a couple more buds in there on different plants so will have to see what other blooms I get. The purple one is different isn't it? Leisa, I have sporadic luck with snapdragons. Never have problems with just the regular dwarf ones, but fancy name ones give me a problem. those are bicolor kim from thompson and Morgan. had tons of seeds but only got about 10 plants out of them. All I do is sprinkle the seeds on the top of the moist soil in the container and put them out in March. I never cover the seeds with soil. Paula, my monkey flower seedlings went into 8 inch pots. The monkey magic is a real dwarf one, only about 6-8 inches tall and I have it in part sun. I've found that full sun is too much for them. Some varieties prefer shade, some sun and some do better in part sun. I have the monkey magic and a taller all yellow one that I also keep in part shade in pots. I never put them in the ground. Lynne, the monkey flower seeds are al but dust size. I'm hoping to have enough for trades in the fall. e-mail me in the fall to ask me if I got lucky and have enough for even a small trade. I love the cosmos daydream, been growing it for years and it always blooms the same, just like my pic. Hey Drippy, miss you up here, how's the weather doing down southern way? Do you like all the heat and humidity? Alberta, thanks, haven't seen you posting for a while. Will post a few new pics later tonight. Fran

It is the best book in the world for info on vegetable growing in our climate. I remember when it first came out. I thought it was outrageously high-priced back in the '80s, but I bought it anyway and have never regretted it. I gardened throughout my childhood with my dad (mom was not at all interested in gardening) and grandaparents, and had tons of gardening neighbors and aunts and uncles. From them, I learned "how to". From Dr. Cotner's book, though, I learned a lot of the "why" and "why not". For example, my family taught me that large-fruited (meaning not cherry or Roma) tomatoes wouldn't set fruit in high heat, but Dr. Cotner taught me (via his book) why it was so. That's just one example of hundreds. The book exists in both hardback and paperback versions. My first copy was the paperback. I left it outside on a lawnchair one day and it got rained on, and I was heartbroken. It was still usable though, and I used it until it was falling apart. Then, I got the hardback version to replace it a year or two ago, and I am so glad I did. No matter how much I learn about gardening, I continue to refer to it constantly, and I continue to learn from it. Dawn

Carol, I'm thrilled your new kitchen is almost done. Redoing the kitchen is on my long-range list of things for Tim to stay busy with once he retires (but that's a few years away yet). The first way I turned peppers to powder was to dry them down as much as I could without scorching them and then I let them cool, put them in a plastic ziplock bag and pounded them into oblivion with a hammer. Then, I put the powder into a pie pan and put it back into the oven to dry a little more so that if there was a shred of moisture in it, it would dry out. The more civilized way is to grind them with a mortar and pestle. Those are the only two ways I've tried so far. One note about working with habanero powder....DO NOT accidentally inhale any of it while working with it, wear gloves, and wash your hands after disposing of the gloves because the powder can go airborne and up inside the gloves. Processing peppers is dangerous as you're walking a fine line between creatively processing surplus produce and harming yourself. One mistake I made (and this has nothing to do with powdered peppers, but just peppers in general) this year was that I mixed up two bowls of peppers together. One was Zavory, a NON-HOT habanero-type pepper and the other was plain old red and orange habaneros. Once they were in the bowl together, I couldn't tell which was which until I sliced them and cut a tiny sliver of each and tasted it. My tongue burned for hours. Next year, I am not even going to harvest them on the same day, and I'll put the non-hot ones immediately into a labeled container to keep them straight. If you want to do a seed swap, we probably could do it in January? It is such a quiet month anyway, and we all know I have enough cowhorn okra seeds for everyone on the forum and Jay has enough tomato seeds for the entire USA. I have been diligently saving Purple Hyacinth Bean seeds too. Dawn

i would love some of these if i could!! that would be so cool!! armenian cucumber tortarelo cucumber golden gopher musk melon? royal golden melon lee okra zolotistala melon casaba melon 1 bosc pear 2 mustard gai choy 1 garden peach tomoto 4 okra mix 1 daikon radish 1 canary bell peppers 2 lemon balm 1 sweet chocolate peppers 1 bok choy 2 green zebra tomato 3 peppers yolo wonder 1 peter peppers this year, i think will be a great year for that square foot gardening!! especially with all that is needing to be put in the ground!!! **big smile** i have lots of 6 blazing star liatres 21 single white angel trumpet-smells awesome 14 lavender datura- don't smell but is pretty!! 4 sesamie seeds so if anyone want's these, let me know. :') these are filled pretty good!@! ~Medo