Greenville SC here... I feel your pain, but differently, I was in the garden laying out the drip irrigation system when the rain came howling in, my wife opened up the window and told my son and I hail was forecasted. At that moment I looked at my 11 year old son who is my co-gardener and in charge of the squash and hot peppers and at the 800+ cherry tomatoes on my 2 plants, the 4 romas and beautiful squash plants(3 a day easily) and massive amounts of hot peppers and i called him on his dedication to maintaining the garden. Without even a blink he answered "what do i need to do" for 15-20 minutes we both sat in the hail holding a tarp tight over the garden, in shorts and t-shirts, he had my panama hat on which protected his head, however he took a beating and never flinched once. When it was over the only damage was that the zuke leaves had some holes torn in them and about 50 cherries got knocked off, all in all a great save. My poor son looked like he got stung be 200 bees, you could count every hail stone that hit his body. I told him I would understand if he went inside but he said not after all the hard work we put in, he knew i loved my garden and his mom loved the zukes and maters. I had never been more proud of him at any other moment in his entire life, I calculated the cost of replanting the garden and figured it to be the cost of a new bicycle, which i took him out the next day to buy. I will never forget watching him on the couch with his eyes misting from the pain and when asked if he was okay, he said it hurt be he would get over it. That night we harvested some zukes, fried them up with onions and olive oil and ate a toast to the garden we both saved that day. I have a feeling your hail was worse than mine granite. condolences. gg

Hi! I'd love some of you seeds: Mexican Sour Gherkins, Orach Double Purple, Purple Shiso, Amaranth Golden Giant. I have a dwarf purple basil (10"), black holly hock seed, and depending on how my tricolor sage weathers our odd winter weather I could possibly send cuttings in Spring. Tried to send you an email and not sure it got thru' so here's mine: I'm at hudson hollow at bellsouth dot net---just drop the spaces and replace "at" and "dot" with the appropriate symbols...and please use your GW user name in the message. Thanks!

The same thing happened to me with Numex Twilight. I spotted a group of seedlings at the edge of my patio. They are now about to flower. Also, I reuse my potting soil, but I discovered a downside. Along with the seeds I'd planted I've had several pepper seedlings come up. Trouble is, if you're not careful you don't know which is which!

I buy my seed envelopes at Staples - they're not cheap, but I find the plastic baggies hard to work with. The upside of the plastic bags is that you can see the seeds right away - the downside is that if seeds go into them that are the slightest bit moist, the mold probability is much higher than in the paper envelopes. When I was at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in London this summer, there were at least as many people (okay, women LOL) getting their picture taken with JD as there were people of both sexes getting their snapshot with the Queen. It's good to be gorgeous.