Hi lj. I have a friend who's just shared with me her first picking of the year of spinach, and it was good - crisp, thick wrinkled leaves. She was told by an old gardener friend to seed her spinach in the garden in late September, early October, and it's to sprout and get to the 2 leaf stage before winter hits (just how to time that she couldn't say). Hers got to the 4 leaf, so she wasn't sure how it would survive the winter, but it did. Here we are, middle of April, and she did her first picking last week. We had really cold weather the 2nd or 3rd week of March, it got down to -20 (or so it felt, I would have to check envi Canada's site for temperature history for our area), and the spinach did fine. Just a note, I checked out where she plants it (actually, she lets the summer plants grow and seed the area for her), and it is in a very sheltered (by large trees that wouldn't shade it too much) area, up against a white sided garage (which would reflect additional sun and heat) that is positioned to the plot's east, and there's a large fence to shelter from north wind, so I'm guessing she's got a microclimate that is a few zones warmer than a more exposed back yard (like mine which gets the full force of winter fury and west wind ripping through it). I'm adopting gladzoe's opinion, of wintersowing later than winter, I'm going to call it 'spring sowing', I know the marigolds and allysum should sprout and grow a bit outside, and I am trying zinnia's with caution, since I just don't have the window space needed for indoors. I'm not fooling myself, my starts will be smaller than if I had grow lights and started them 6-8 weeks before frost indoors, but I am confident they will be larger than if I direct sowed in the ground like the package says, and I should get blooms a little early. Good Luck, let us know how any experiments turn out.

Brugs from cuttings can easily bloom the first year. Where on the original plant they were taken from is the main determining factor as to when they will bloom. Even those grown from seed will bloom in 1 or 2 seasons. Have you been giving them weekly feedings? Brugs are very heavy feeders during the growing season. You might be able to winter your brugs over. They can be cut way back and you don't need to lift them with a big root ball. I cut my brugs back to about 10" when I winter them over. They will go dormant over the winter and just need to be kept above freezing. They require very little water during this time, maybe a cup a month to keep the roots hydrated. When the temps begin to warm you can start watering and fertilizing your brugs. Karyn

Good question. I'm near Akron. When the weather channel talks about the mid west, They stand in front of Akron. When they talk about the north east, they stand in front of Akron. I like the OH River, although most contributers are warmer.

Jerry the biggest difference is Zonealarm's two way blocking feature which is lacking in the XP firewall. This means if phone home spies or other malware piggyback in on legitimate software you have absolutely no control over it with XP because it only controls incoming things. There is no down side to having Zonealarm instead of the XP firewall. Once set up it is very easy to control. Just pay attention during the download and install so that you keep ticking the free version to install. If memory serves me right you then need to go to your security window and turn off the XP firewall manually.