Diane, I was in Florida a couple of years ago in the height of summer. I wilted just getting out of the car and walking a short distance to the beach. Mind you I am originally from tropical Asia but I've never ever gone thru that kind of heat before. Wow. Good think you overwinter there as opposed to staying there thru summer. There are some really good wheels for pots nowadays to make it easier for you to transport your pots in and out. I would always start off with a good garden clean up. I am one of those who prefer to do my pruning in the spring as opposed to doing it in the fall. So I do my general clean up around April. Then I put in a very thin layer of black earth (LOBLAWS brand) with a sprinklng of bone meal and composted manure. Then I start seeding my annual wildflowers. The blackearth gives a beautiful fresh look to the yard. almost like icing on the cake. and once plants start poking thru the contrast is beautiful. I get many visitors each year just inspecting what's growing in the yard. Now is also the time to refresh your lawn by adding a thin layer of topsoil mixed in with brick sand and seeds. Reseed in 2 weeks to ensure complete coverage. If one needs to do aeration, best to do this prior to adding the topsoil layer. I get a very thick and healthy lawn as a result.

Sheri, What sun? Sorry, just kidding. Cloudy and cold here all day and I have missed the sunlight. How are you going to use the sunlight? Will your flat of peat pellets be sitting inside the house in a sunny window? Or, are you planning on carrying the flat outside every morning and setting it in a protected yet sunny location and then carrying it back inside at night? If you are going to have them inside sitting inside a sunny window, I think you could start them now. I am assuming they will be able to get at least 8 hours of sunlight a day though. If you are going to carry them outside every morning and back in at night, I think I might wait and start them around March 1st. Remember that tiny seedlings are very vulnerable to the cold weather, though, so don't leave them outside on a day that is going to stay in the 30s. If you have a sunroom or sun porch, you probably could start them now in that location too. If you use only one seed per peat pellet for herbs and veggies, you can leave the transplant in the pellet until it is time to plant unless the cold hangs on longer than expected and the plant is outgrowing its' pellet. The drawback, though, is that there is little nutrition to speak of in that peat, so your plants might get a little hungry. You can get around that by feeding them with a liquid fertilizer like liquid fish or liquid seaweed or compost tea, diluted to be one-half as strong as the label recommends. How will you know if your plants are hungry? Their color may look a little off or they might yellow a little or their rate of growth might seem to be slower than usual. In addition, plants that are left to sit outside in the sun all day in peat pellets can dry out quite easily, especially if a brisk wind is blowing. If plants that small get too dry, they can die before you make it home from work to water them. The smaller the plant, the smaller the margin of error. It is easy to move the plants up to a larger container if the time arrives when you believe they need it. One clue will be that their roots are growing out of the bottom of the peat pellet and reaching out looking for someplace to go. Just use paper or styrofoam cups. Poke a couple of holes in the bottom for drainage. Put 2"-3" of Jiffy Mix or an organic potting soil or seed-starting mix in the bottom of the cup, assuming the cup is 6" or more inches tall. Set the peat pellet on top of that soil and then fill in around the pellet with more soil. Water to settle down the soil and then add a little more soil if needed. The cups will give your plants more room to grow roots and more soil to hold moisture as the plants grow. I like to transfer them up to larger containers as it gives the plants stronger, more vigorous root systems. The stronger and more vigorous the root systems, the better the plants will do once they are in the ground. It usually isn't absolutely required to move them up to bigger containers, though, if you don't want to do it or just don't have time to do it. The only other problem I have with peat pellets is that sometimes the plants in them seem to suffer from damping off more than plants in something like Jiffy mix. I suspect the pure peat contributes to that by holding too much water but I am not sure. If you drink chamomile tea and have chamomile handy, watering the peat pellets with a weak mixture of unsweetened chamomile tea seems to help prevent damping off. As an alternate method of raising them, you could wintersow them in flats that stay outside 24/7 in a somewhat protected location. For detailed directions on wintersowing, go to the Wintersowing Forum and read the FAQ. One advantage of wintersown tomatoes is that they seem more coldhardy. However, since they won't start growing until the daytime and nighttime temps are "just right", the plants might be smaller than you want them to be by your average last frost date. In some areas, that might not be a problem. However, in our climate, where spring weather is sometimes fleeting and we sometimes seem to go from winter to summer in the same week, smaller plants might not get large enough to flower until heat is already a problem. A lot of people who wintersow tomatoes do so in a climate that has a long, mild spring quite different from ours. Another alternative would be to put them in a coldframe like Bill P. (who posts as GoneFishing on the Texas and Tomato Forums) does. He seems to have great success with his tomato plants in a cold frame and he doesn't have to carry plants in and out morning and night. Dawn

I still have not heard from Dario but I will keep emailing him until I do. I may even call tomorrow. My cherimoyas were even dirty which I know isn't a big deal but my first order was so nice! Now hearing that Kristi got some Finos makes me even more angry! Kristi when did you place that order for your 20 pounds? I was wondering. Does anyone know if you can prolong the ripening process? Knowing that Dario probobly wont send me any Finos makes me really sad. I had been craving them for so long. I am looking forward to trying the bay and lucida though. Tammy, has your cherimoyas bloomed at all? I have to say that I really like this little tree. The you tube link that I think Ajay gave me was very interesting. I could not believe how much growth these trees put out in one year! The guy who did the demo was from papaya nursery and he pruned that cherimoya down to the crown of the tree(or the base I guess you would call it.) and he said that this was an annual practice. Knowing this I think will make it easier to grow in a large tub. I didn't start in a big pot though. Tammy, how long did you wait to start fertilizing your fino? I only gave it some vitamin B-1 because it is good for trnaplant shock. I am really ttring to give this tree the best care possible. I really need to work on a my log. I have not touched it in a very long time. I was thinking it would be a good way to keep notes on my trees progress. Sincerely, Andrew

Having asked around on the 'net and noticing which ones were mentioned more frequently, I narrowed my cultivar list to 4 - Fino De Jete, Pierce, Honeyhart & Selma. I have 3 grafted Honeyharts, 3 grafted Selma & 1 grafted Fino de Jete. They were grafted this past May so I don't expect fruit this season. I have seedlings growing now to have Fino de Jete & Pierce wood grafted onto them. I love cherimoyas. The cheapest I can buy them for is at a local farmer's market for $3-$3.50/lb.