Hi alisande, Nope I haven't. What I did is till a three foot swath and hoed three lines and then followed with seeds and covered em. I have a pull behind tiller for a lawn tractor. That could be partially the reason they are moving along so rapidly as I dont' believe they've been in the ground more than 4 weeks. The pole beans will find their way along and all germinated. All 200+ of them. I found this awesome website for the beans and also bought other veggie seeds for my garden. I will definitely return as I see various stages of blooming. My Zinnia's are all tiny critters. They weren't planted until three weeks ago. Ciao! Dax Here is a link that might be useful: Seeds From Italy

Becky, I'll chime in here with a few suggestions. First get the book 'The Flower Farmer' by Lynn Byzinski, I may have spelled her name wrong but she lays out everything very clearly. My favorite fillers are bupleurum, cerinthe, (harvest into hydrating solution), misty, statice, ferns and New Zealand flax. You wont go wrong with suns and zinnias. Try some asters for later in the season, they are easy. Good luck. Kat

I understand this. Certain crops do well with direct sowing but I've had contrary to the norm experiences to date. Carrots and onions and beets---eh, not as great as I hoped despite over seeding. Radishes all sprouted though using same method. Same with zuch, watermelon and winter squash---the seedlings I have had to pull that I hate because they weren't cheap and frankly, I'd love lots of all three---and both marigolds and nasturtiums too. My comment context is on several fronts. I did all transplants last year from mail order and a nursery. It was not cost effective but only one seedling of 15-20 didn't make it. This year was all direct sowing in contrast minus the yarrow left from last year. So yes, seed is cheap overall but I have empty space where I over seeded and not enough space where I counted each individual seed---100% germination with those seeds to be exact so I moved what I could to empty pots with crap soil to see how they do. It was a simple observation that others might find useful/intriguing because there is no right or wrong way to garden and why not share? But thanks for the information.

Thanks for the advice. This is rather a late update but I just wanted to say that soon after I posted this, I potted the tomato in a large container and kept it outside on my apt balcony. The white spots quickly went away on their own. I guess it just needed sunshine and better air circulation!