Wow, i am sorry you lost so many flowers! Hope you start feeling better soon! Sandra :)

Chandra, You were lucky to find such a great house, and the children look great. I saw your Facebook posting and it looks like you project is off to a good start. When we lived in Greece, I didn't grow anything at all and just shopped at the local markets. We got great vegetables, but the markets were mobile so didn't have all of the things that yours has. When I worked, I would usually hit at least 2 each week during my lunch hour. I was also on maternity leave while we lived there, and a little guy with a wagon full of vegetables rang my gate bell once a week to see what he could sell to me. He couldn't understand why I wouldn't buy dandelion greens. LOL I would go crazy with all of those spices. I would have to try them all. As I told you earlier, the Fling just wasn't going to be the same with out your family, and I heard you name mentioned many times. Hugs to your family. Carol

Beth, The only real issue with planting garlic from the grocery store is that garlic is daylength sensitive and the variety you buy in the store might need a longer daylength than we have here to induce bulbing. However, every kind I've ever bought and planted has grown well and bulbed for me, so the chance of that is slim. The secondary issue is that garlic, like potatoes, is sprayed with an anti-sprouting chemical to keep it from sprouting while in the grocery store on in your kitchen pantry. However, the anti-sprouting agents only last for so long and the garlic does eventually sprout (as do potatoes in the pantry!). I often buy my garlic for planting at a gourmet grocery store in Texas because they label it with its proper name, and the garlic there is organic and hasn't been sprayed with anti-sprouting chemicals. I've never had any trouble getting it to sprout and grow. I've linked the SSE instructions for planting garlic. They were written by the late Darrell Merrell of the Tulsa, OK, area. Whatever you do, make sure it is in well drained soil, preferably in a raised bed several inches above the grade of the surrounding soil. If you don't have raised beds, just mound up enough soil above the ground to plant in that mound. Garlic will rot during an excessively wet winter and spring, and according to NOAA, we should be expecting a wet winter. As long as you break the cloves apart carefully without bruising them and plant them as the guide directs, you'll have garlic bulbs next summer. They key is to plant in the fall. You plant in the fall, cold weather induces growth. In the early summer, the green plant parts begin to turn yellow and brownish and it is time to harvest. When you planted a bulb of store-bought garlic, did you plant the whole bulb? Did you plant in spring? Either one of those can give you only the green scape and seed head. It could be had you a type that was the wrong daylength for our part of the country. With grocery store garlic, you never know. That's why a lot of people prefer to buy 'seed garlic' that is labeled, etc. If you plant grocery store garlic, try to find several different kinds...a white-skinned one, a purple-skinned one, etc. That sort of hedges your bets. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: How To Plant and Grow Garlic

You know damn good and well that nobody sleeps this time of year :-) We've got the small greenhouse crammed full and ALL the tables in the big one are loaded, mainly w/ over 600 baskets that need to be hung up before we can start filling more flats--starting on some of the veggies now, mainly peppers. We got busy planting and now have to catch up on putting the hangers on the baskets but I don't lack many now. Got 2000 strawberry plants coming by the end of the month so there is another little planting job. We've decided to start a pick your own to go along w/ the blueberries. Had a slight disaster in the big g/h when four large tables that were hooked together crashed [loaded w/ plants, of course] so we lost a few hours rebuilding them. They are NOT hooked together now :-) We've gone 3 times [I think> to your neck of the woods for bales of dirt. Picked up 30 on a Friday and went back for 30 more on the following Monday. The guys at the FB couldn't believe we'd gone through that many so fast but it was even more than that counting what we had on hand. So, as you can see, at least "I" am awake. The other 2 houses will fill up quickly enough. Hope you can make it over sometime. Best, Tom