Nitrogen is a gas. The best place to get Nitrogen from is things that are alive -- their cells still have a lot of that gas captured. You can plant legumes and cut them down halfway through flowering when the N is most available. The roots will have the N-fixing bacteria still in the soil, and the plants you cut down you can use for mulch. That's a double dose of N. You can pee on your garden, as long as you're not taking any meds that could be in your pee. You can add kitchen scraps into holes in your garden as you transplant, deeper than would attract critters. You can add blood meal, but that would definetly attract critters. There are lots of things you can do. I'd reccommend pee, pit composting, and planting legumes.

If you hear anything, please post. I tried to add to my order and got an automated reply. Then I got a cancellation of a Paypal request (never got the request). I am assuming she is swamped with getting orders out and I believe mine is due to ship fairly soon. I'm hoping to hear something. The original one went in Feb. but then VG bailed on me. I'm sure happy I ordered some things from Travis back then instead of counting on VG. You know though, it seems wrong to have to order Blue Dragon 3 different places to actually get 1. I can't keep doing that sort of thing. Diana

2 years ago I placed a sizeable order of seeds from Swallowtail, and although I wasn't happy with all the seed strains, I had good results with all 3 varieties of Echinacea. This included E. purpurea 'Pow wow wild berry', 'Bravado', and 'Primadonna White'. In particular the 'Bravado' has been a very vigourous grower, producing a large blooming clump in the 2nd year. The PWWB not so much. This will be the 3rd year coming up for these seedlings, can't wait to see how they do!

Scott, I don't know of a plug source for A. curassavica, but I find the plants from the ebay seller dogwooderitternet very inexpensive and very nice. They are small but well rooted, and packed well. I see that he has threevarieties of milkweeds listed right now. He is a very popular supplier to butterfly gardeners and carries a range of host plants and other flora. Dogwoodritternet can be found easily by google-ing. Also, if you buy one or two large A. curassavica at a garden center, you can take cuttings and start additional plants quite easily. Directions for this can be found on the internet. I did see that North Creek Nurseries offers A. Incarnata, aka 'swamp' milkweed, a very nice perennial plant for the garden, at 50 plugs for $50 which is a pretty good price. Probably more plugs than you need, but maybe you have some friends who want to garden for butterflies? Have fun. J. Here is a link that might be useful: North Creek Nursery