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.

Alison...I didn't keep track of dates last year. I have quite a few things germinating now - gaillardias, diff. rudbeckias, poppies, sunnies, flax, bachelor buttons, lavateras, stocks, sweet william, cosmos, poached egg plant... Yesterday I planted the blind-eyed susie seeds(thunbergia elata - white with NO black eyes) from your plants at the spring swap. I haven't done the millet grass yet. Have you? I have done a great deal of my winter sowing in late Feb. and sporatically in March. Only the hyacinth beans and millet grass to go. Good question..what do the other Ohio Valley WSers have sprouting now. Beverly

Hi Luke, I am in south east Ohio and we've had bluebirds here. I have several bluebird houses around the yard and I saw 5 bluebirds in a tree near one of the houses. It was getting dark and one by one they landed on the board fence where the birdhouse was and all five went into the house. I've never seen that before and was suprised since I've heard how territorial they are. Hopefully someone will answer your question about helping them through the winter. What are bluebird feeding pellets. I've never ran across those when I've been buying bird feed. Debby

First, let me say that I'm not a commercial vendor or business. I have more varieties & seeds than I can grow and offer my extras at a cheap price to cover shipping, special envelopes, expenses, ebay & Paypal fees, etc. What I make is miniscule--it's almost a break-even in small amounts, and considering what it costs me in supplies & utilities to grow them til harvest, it may even be a net loss. Any money goes towards food on the table & my mother's Rx's or supplies. Without getting too personal here, she's diabetic & mid-level Alzheimers and I have more than 1 handicap/disability. As many here may know, I've given away many seeds for free in the past, both here & other places, as well as sometimes trading & bartering. This is just a way to get some harder to find seeds out there to people to grow, some aren't easily available commercially, (Olive Hill was great this year!) so it's a good cause both ways. I've distributed probably 20+ packs for free this year at the Buffalo-Niagara Tomato Tastefest party, in addition to donating 60 packs to the event as winner prizes, some still unclaimed (actually 50 packs--I won Smallest Tomato category! Anybody that won please contact me by e-mail if you still haven't picked your choices--yes, YOU get to choose 10 packs!) Anyway, generally 20-30 seeds per pack, even more for some small seeded varieties... about 300 tomato varieties, it increases every year. While I often use generic descriptions, I also try to include personal comments on how they did or what I thought of them. Pics are available for most so you know what they should look like, what the seeds came out of. Many are not bagged but I use some unique practices like isolation, distraction planting, timing, location/selection, etc. Commercial places don't bag blossoms, though they do grow larger #'s of plants to reduce their chances of crossing. I actually make it very difficult for crosses to occur. You really have to throw the plant distance/closeness theory out the window and think outside the box on this one--I've actually found that others that plant with sufficient or great space between plants often get crossed seeds and I don't. Plus I often regrow my seeds the following year to insure what it's supposed to be, not just germinating to check leaf type. If you feel you've got a variety that isn't what it was meant to be, I encourage everyone to e-mail me at matermark@gmail.com to let me know about it and I'll pull it and make good on it. And if I grow a variety from well known commercial sources that you've already mentioned here, and it's not correct, (yes, it happens many times, from many you've recommended above), I come right out and say it's suspect (say, PL Watermelon Beefsteak or WinsAll) & don't offer it, pull it or replace it. I usually outright discard seeds and try another source if it doesn't seem like what it should be, instead of selling those seeds or giving them away as "bonus" seeds like some often-recommended-here companies do--ie: Azoychka bonus seeds many are familiar with....plus you know what I've went through re: Dr. Lyle... Yes, many places charge shipping or handling charges that often are higher than the seeds... plus many people compromise what they grow because of high S/H costs incurred from ordering from multiple places. I've found ways to cut those costs considerably, so I pay the shipping. I don't really have any minimum order levels though try to stay in nice rounded numbers like $3-5-10, and have even worked with people with smaller quantities of each variety, of course it takes much more time & is more expensive for me to pull 20 packs of just 5 seeds than 5 packs of 20 seeds. And you don't need to be an ebay member either, it's just that that is my most common, easily accessable outlet, and I use it in the spring mostly, when I have all my seeds together, ready to decide which to plant. I also put my extra plants on craigslist in May for a buck or 2. So, once again, I'm not a business, and this isn't an ad or an offer--I'm an enthusiast. Like I said, if someone is looking for just 1 variety or so, I often help at no cost or SASE if it's something I have enough of and easy to get to & have time. Hope this helps. Mark, who must harvest peppers, take a "non-compliant" diabetic mother shopping for Halloween candy "for Trick or Treaters" she says, carve 2 Atlantic Giant pumpkins in the cold, and hopefully finish planting my garlic. Still no frost yet here in the metropolis named after "beautiful river", but expecting one tonight, almost a month later than usual...