Just yesterday I was digging around trying to feel if I had some potatoes worth digging up under my plants (planted around 4/1, and I felt a couple of big ones down there. I wasn't brave enough to go ahead and dig and now I'm feeling sheepish because I actually have potatoes on my shopping list. OF COURSE I should dig up a plant for the pound of new potatoes I need! (at least, I think I should... I've a novice potato grower. Other than size -- which I don't think they'll gain any more since the weather is going to be in the eighties -- is there any reason to wait before harvesting a few?)

I know what you mean! I am cutting grass in the pine thicket & removing diseased pines. My son will use the small tree in a bonfire for graduation party. Well he is cutting most of the grass & we are mulching between the beds, about 4-6 inches deep. I have no rock, wish I had that problem, but the ground is softer with the dry & green clippings on it. When they dry out, I may compost them, but for now they are great weed control.

Thanks Teresa! I just checked out the Indy Hosta Society website about the convention. Of course that happens to be the weekend I have to head up to South Bend for my brother's wedding. But according to the website it looks like its open to the public from 1 to 11pm on Wednesday June 20th. Just might have to drag my husband up there after work. We do have our 2nd anniversary coming up the following Monday -- there we go an easy anniversary present for him to get me, more hostas. And thereby inching closer to Ken's prediction of 30 by the end of the summer. LOL!

The snow was gone here a couple weeks ago and thank goodness for this weather so far! After the past couple years (and even last month) where we've had below normal winter and spring temps, it's a nice break. You can thank a positive NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) and a neutral to slightly positive Pacific Oscillation for that. We had gotten so accustomed to teens and twenties for highs every winter for weeks at a time and being pushed to consider that "normal" (which it isn't, at least here in SE PA), that what we are experiencing now seems "mild" and in reality, it's closer to "normal" and what the temps should be (highs mid - upper 30s and lows in the mid 20s for the coldest month of January). Since the beginning of December, I have watched below normal weather here in the east being idiotically cheered on by several commercial weather forecasters (some who finally admitted that they were "snow lovers" after weeks on end threatening that winter is coming... winter is coming.... look out.... And even concocting hypothetical graphical scenarios illustrating what would need to occur to theoretically produce even more severely below normal cold weather), while those same ones cheered on the above-normal temps elsewhere across the U.S. But god forbid, let us struggle to normal and slightly above and they get their panties in a twist. Meanwhile out west, temps are some 30 degrees above normal. :-\ Sorry for the weather rant...but I've been wanting to get that out. ;-) beanmomma - if you can remember the winter of 2001 - 2002, you might be able to predict whether your plants will come out of dormancy too soon. I have a couple new potted shrubs and a new containered tree (a plum that only needs 250 chill hours which I'm sure has gotten that by now) that I am watching too. Right now it seems that the temp range has been perfect for "chill hour" accumulation. But I think as long as we do hit or go below freezing at night, I expect the plants will hang on in dormancy awhile longer. Crossing fingers that we can make it through this month like this and squeak through February the same way, then we should be pretty much on our way to spring! :-)