I want to thank everyone who so generously sent seeds to me for my grandbabies gardens. (and those who are going to but haven't yet). In thanks, and to give me just another chance to brag, here are pics of the grandbabies that you are planting gardens for. They were born on the 18th by scheduled c-section. Katelyn JoAnne 5# 13oz. 19" long 1:16PM EST Johnathan Scott 5# 12oz. 19" long 1:18PM EST The big sister in the picture is Alyssa Renee, 8# 6oz. January 6, 2004. Mommy is Lois Renee, 6# 12oz, Feb 24, 1975. lol Again, thank you all for what you have sent, and for what is going to be sent. These precious babies will know how much they were loved by all who donated. Merry CHRISTmas and Happy New Year to each one of you. Carol B

Linda (opnjmprs, You got the bug before we did! We've been so busy for so long that reading/posting on any boards has been minimal. Yes ours are started and growing...around 800 again this year. My belief on getting 1st year bloom in our zone 6a area involves the plant being atleast 8 months old (preferably 9 months old) in August. That means they need to be growing in first couple of weeks of December. Seems they also don't like pulling apart and basically making a bare root transplant (we tried that last year with a few crosses), so we have 1 plant per 16oz plastic cold cup/stryofoam hot cup. They have an awesome root system in these and using a bulb planter they plop rather quickly from cup to the bed. We find it best to get them into the seedling bed before May. I know some like plain soil beds and that's their way of doing things, but we are all different. We have a pretty heavy clay type soil here, so we add Mushroom Compost, some coase sand (concrete sand) and fallen leaves and till it early Fall to around 8" deep. Give them the nutrients they need and they will bloom beginning the last of August for us. The combination the age and husbandry seems the ticket. Maybe the quanity/quality of the lighting helps also..we don't know. We now get over 50% 1st year bloom now; atleast the past 2 years have been this way. Here's a few shots of our grow room last year. It's actually so bright it bothers your eyes to look at them. Seedlings at 4 weeks Our low tech grow room Cheers, Bruce and Tanya Here is a link that might be useful: Our Website updated with a link to the grow room

The cornbread holy wars erupt every so often. I do prefer a nonsweet cornbread simply because I don't care for sweet stuff all that much, and I like cornbread with savory stuff like beans and chili. I found an old post I posted some years back (hard to believe I've been spewing out opinions for five years now on CF!!) on the subject. For those of you looking for a non-sweet cornbread, I've never found anything better than this one, from Bernard Clayton: I will grant a point to those who use 'adulterants' :) like sugar and flour: unless the quality of the corn meal is very good, cornbread made with just corn meal can be bitter. Meal can go rancid and stale pretty quickly. But cornbread made with fresh cornmeal, preferably stone-ground locally, is plenty sweet on its own. I generally only buy small quantities of cornmeal--just enough to make whatever recipe I'm making, and I buy it at a store that seems to have a good turnover of product. (That means not buying it at a gourmet store. No telling how long that stuff has been on the shelf.) Fortunately in my area of South Carolina there are a few grist mills not too far away that supply the local stores. Bernard Clayton's 'New Complete Book of Breads' actually has a listing for 2 different breads. One he calls "Yankee Corn Bread" (sugar, flour, yellow corn meal) and the other is Southern Corn Bread (white corn meal, no sugar or flour.) I find, though, that the freshness of the meal is more important than whether it's white or yellow. For those with access to good fresh meal I recommend this recipe for Southern Corn Bread, from Clayton: 2 eggs, room temp 2 cups buttermilk, room temp 1 tsp baking soda 2 cups white cornmeal (but yellow is okay, too) 1 1/2 tsp salt Preheat oven and baking utensil (skillet or 9 x 9 pan) to 450 while mixing batter. In a small bowl beat the eggs and mix in the buttermilk. In a mixer bowl, mix the baking soda, cornmeal and salt. Pour in the egg-buttermilk mixture and mix well until smooth. Pour batter into the preheated pan, return to oven for 20 to 25 minutes. It's done when a knife inserted into the center of the pan comes out clean & dry. I use this recipe when I make cornbread dressing for Thanksgiving; a quadruple recipe just barely fits into a 5 quart KitchenAid mixer bowl, and into an 11 x 14 pan. Absolutely delicious. This is what you use to soak up the pot juices from cooking black-eyed peas or greens. I always called those juices 'pot liquor' but my wife wondered what the heck I was talking about when I used that term. I guess that's southern as well.

Knee High by the Fourth of July -- Jess Lourey (Vee - Thanks. I can't explain it, but Roman numerals seem to be my specific learning disability. That and logistics.)