idabean - I have several pairs of the Lee Valley gardener's pants and they are invaluable - not only for gardening but any hands-and-knees type work where knee pads come in handy. I do prefer the original knee pads they had rather than the new, thicker ones though. Fortunately I bought spare knee pads years ago so have lots. If you have roses, Lee Valley's rose gauntlets are great. The Bionic rose gloves you can get are equally as effective - but not nearly as nice looking! A valuable Lee Valley tool is the long-arm pruners - essential for pruning the wisteria trees or tall vines. Do you have a gardener's journal, and a rain gauge? I prefer a simple rain gauge to the fancy weather station things. Each day I record general weather conditions, rainfall and high/low temperature. I get the temperature reading on-line from the Environment Canada weather station closest to me. I'm sure there must be somewhere similar that you could get that info from. It's not as precise, obviously, as a reading from your own garden but it's good enough to track general trends. As temperature would fluctuate even in your own garden, depending on whether you are measuring in an exposed or sheltered location, I figure the EC weather station data is close enough. Garden books are always a welcome gift and DH has a knack for finding interesting ones in used book stores! He also gets the Timber Press catalog. I love William Robinson's The Wild Garden and also like Rick Darke's books so I have requested the new edition of the Wild Garden that has been expanded by Rick Darke. Here is a link that might be useful: The Wild Garden - new edition

I don't post here a lot, but I do on the Canadian forums. I lurk here :-) I don't grow a lot of tomato varieties but I do grow for quality. This year I have one plant, grown form a seed of the original Gordon Graham tomato. He has the world's record largest tomato according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Through good fortune and a friend, I was able to trade for just a few seeds from Gordon Graham's world record tomato. I got one to germinate, so I have one tomato plant that is a direct child of his original! I do grow other tomatoes but I'm really excited about this one! We had a very bad tomato year last year with lots of BER. This year I planted the tomatoes in my good lasagne "wine" garden, dug in lots of old manure, a little lime and one Tums tablet in each hole. The same friend who gave me the seeds above, told me that a Tums will help supply the calcium the tomatoes need to help prevent BER. So I'm trying it. It's easy and cheap, so I figured "Why not?" We'll see how it goes. Needless to say, I baby that plant! In addition to that one, I am also growing our own heritage Portugal beefheart tomatoes (see link to pic below), San Marzano, Manitoba, Ailsa Craig, and Rev Morrow long keeper. Here is a link that might be useful:

My oldest child, a boy, had autism spectrum disorder. it began to manifest itself at age 18 months and was diagnosed at age 3. Therapists at that time did not trust early age diagnosis because of other diseases masquerading as autism. For our case, a definite diagonsis was decalred at age 3. We had a heartbreaking time of it. We could not afford proper treatment and insurance did not cover "mystery" diseases. Our kid was antisocial and clever. He exhibited two personalities: one when he was in our presence and another when he was beyond our control or knowlege. He strove to keep these two lives separated, but when the two spheres of existance happened to meet, he tried to shrink into nothing like trying to melt into the floor. For example, one time he was with us when we were standing in line at the village hall to vote. Suddently, he dropped to the floor and covered his head. We were puzzled. The problem: He had spied his school teacher in the line next to us. We had never met this treacher, but we happened to say a casual hello to each other. We had another problem with school. He was an odd-ball at school and others began to either shun or tease him. His anger was held until it spilled over the break point and he would explode on someone. Sometimes, it was not the proper object, but another child who was nearby and whom he knew he could best. The second and major problem was the attitude of school personnel. This problem was festering and they never contacted us until it had gotten out of control. One day, he split he lip of a little girl and chipped her tooth. I beleive her parents were threatening legal action against the school, and it was at this point when the school authorities first contacted us. We were hauled in to inform us our son was being thrown out of school. This was the first time the school contacted us, and it was the first time we became aware of the problem. He had just become a 1st grader and was being tossed out. Nothing was ever done about teasing. There is more to this story and parental tears, but I'll wrap it up with the outcome. We moved to a different school system and when he came to live with us again, he entered his freshman year in high school. At graduation, he won the "most improved" student. He's now 45 years old, living away from home, and managing to hold a job to earn barely enough to pay his rent and food. He still has a couple of personal demons to resist, but these affect only him. One demon he has defeated. We are proud of his progress. It is much more than the progonosis of his childhood. It has taken much support tempered with iron will from his parents. On thing I will say is never give up, and do not accept inappropriate behavior. Do not respond to inappropriate behavior, but always be alert and always respond positivetly to appropriate behavior. As an adult, maintain contact and include him in the family circle. Make a point to visit with him on...

Monique doesn't work for Holtkamp. Monique is Monique Holtkamp, wife of Reinhold Holtkamp, Jr. Heavens, I'm no expert. I only know what you couldn't kill in 3 years. I grow some in the window so I have some that may work for that and I like blue. I have seen so many put downs of Optimara that I do stick up for them because they are the ones many new growers start with and they are also good ones to start with. I think it must be depressing to send off an order and have them all die. I usually spend around $75-100 when I order. I can get out of Lowe's for $30 or less. There's no reason to discard them later if you like them and they're doing well because if you think you are going to get better ones, you may be in for a shock. Right now good old Optimara Texas is blooming just fine and Faded Denim looks like the devil. When it gets a flower, it's pretty but I think it's about a foot tall. I grow Fredettes, some trailers, some wasps now, some little ones, vintage ones - I like violets. Gardenweb (Houzz?) is not bad about Optimara but you may run into some other people/places where it's like you have cooties. ;) Yes, Kent Stork took the myViolets and hybridized with them and calls them the Ace series, I think. Someone said what perhaps others were thinking and said she'd bought one at Walmart, lol. (He hasn't officially introduced them yet.) I said they looked bigger and that so far the myViolets had seemed to run a bit small and he said that had been his experience. It will be interesting to see them side by side. It was a small photo but the leaves did look large compared to the myViolets. I expect we will be able to see the differences more clearly once they are available. Some plants may not make good show plants but that's okay because I'm not a show grower. It's good to remember that sometimes show growers' objectives may not mesh with a pleasure grower's objectives. Optimara may not be perfect but I don't think I've ever seen some of the crazy foliage on their plants that I've seen on other hybridizer's. The kind where it looks like it stuck its finger in the light socket or something of the sort. Of course their foliage changes course immediately when I take it home and never looks the same again. I'm used to that. FC2 Holtkamp 370 entries P. Hancock 210 entries (and I know some aren't in there) H. Pittman 728 entries K. Stork 160 entries Lyndon Lyon Greenhouses 313 entries P. Sorano 164 entries S. Sorano 784 entries (+ 20 under S. Groeneman) R. Robinson 245 entries Eyerdom 559 entries Should we be picking on Holtkamp? There were fewer Buckeyes than I expected. It's always seemed like there were a lot of them. I had no idea how that was going to turn out but it was interesting. Diana in PA