I've been playing outside too, trying to get beds ready for more spring planting. I have still have 100+ plants in pots waiting to be planted. My entire yard is a garden, so I've been trimming back dead foliage and pulling some weeds and generally cleaning up so I won't waste any valuable planting time come spring. Now is also a great time for us to transplant trees and I have some growing in the wrong place, so they're on my to-do list. I'm in the process of turning a flower garden into an edible garden. And I see my lavender and rosemary are still green. I've added to my list to buy some more of those. Gotta have 'em. This is the mildest winter I remember. And I'm loving it! I even have a canna sprouting!

Cherokee Purple, RL, was the original and it's a pink/so called black with a clear epidermis. There are two known CP's that are PL. One was found by Jere Gettle of Baker Creek Seeds and he named it Cherokee Purple Potato Leaf. The other one was named by Bill Malin and is called Spudakee, "spud" means potato in German. CP had an epidermis mutation which changed the epidermis color from clear to Yellow and Craig LeHoullier, the person who first introduced CP, called that one Cherokee Chocolate b'c it's much darker. He initially called it Cherokee Brick Red and listed it in the SSE Yearbook where listings for it are still there, but it should be Cherokee Chocolate; the two are the same. Craig send seeds of CC to Darrell Merrel in OK and when Darrell sent back seeds of CC one plant gave green when ripe fruits and Craig called that one Cherokee Green. The above are all from the original heirloom OP. There's also a Cherokee Red, which is an older commercial variety and not at all related to the original CP. There are also some varieties that have CP as part of a cross, etc., such as Golden Cherokee, but it isn't clear to me if Golden Cherokee is a mutation of Cherokee Green or a selection from a cross. Reinhard Kraft in Germany introduced that one and next time I e-mail him I'd like to ask him what he meant by "sport" as he described it, b'c "sports" can be either mutation of seed DNA or a somatic mutation of cell DNA. I don't see Cherokee Purple as being purple any more than I see Aunt Ginny's Purple or Eva Purple Ball being purple. The only varieties I know of that have a purple tint are Noire des Cosebeauf and Purple Calabash, neither of which are distinguished by notable taste IMO, as well as Purple Smudge, either the red-fleshed or orange fleshed one, and most don't praise the taste of that one either. it has areas of purple on the exterior. Keith, who posts here as Mulio has used Cherokee Purple in crosses with Brandywine and from selection from those crosses has stabilized the OP varieties Dora, Gary 'O Sena and Liz Birt which have won high praise from folks who have grown them, especially Dora as I remember. Carolyn

Yeah, I gave in and buried one a couple of weeks after the first buyer canceled the sale of our house. We had another buyer several weeks later. I bought a nice colorful ceramic statue at a Catholic bookstore and put him upside down in a planter bed by the driveway. Digging him up was the last thing I did as we were driving away after the house sold. St Joseph rode in the front seat with me all the way from SoCal to Portland, Oregon. He's now on the bookcase in the hallway and will have a spot somewhere in our new house. It may be silly, but it's fun silly, so what does it matter? Kind of like not crossing paths with a black cat or any of the other little superstitions people have.

ORB is fine. I have chrome for plumbing and despite what Patricia says it is the easiest to keep looking good., I have ORB for doors, and antique brass for lighting and my house is being featured in a national magazine in their February issue. So if it's so dated, why would the magazine be featuring my home with ORB? My opinion is black for doors will wind up dated before ORB as it is so trendy