In the past week, I have received both Veseys and Dams catalogues. From Veseys, I like the new 'Strawberry Cream' nasturtiums. I like the fact that they are going to be shorter than the older varieties. I'm also going to order the 'Cherry Brandy' Rudbeckia. Dams has a new carnation I like 'Picotee Fantasy, a beautiful streaked variety. The new Flax 'Charmer Mix' is nice with different colors in it. I also like the new petunia 'Picobella Mix'. It's replacing the 'Fantasy' I used to get. That's it for the new flowers I like, now to search the vegies! Marg

I've got the seed-starting light shelf out of storage, dusted off and cleaned up, and it is set up in the spare bedroom. I sowed seeds in two 72-cell flats....a combination of veggies, herbs and flowers. I didn't even get out the seedling heat mat because there's nothing I seeded that really needs extra heat to sprout. I just put pea seeds in water to soak for a little while so I can sprout them in baggies. Part of the front garden is cleaned up and ready to go, and the rest will be ready by the end of this week. It's too early for me to do much of anything else. It is, after all, still only February. One warm spell in February doesn't cancel out the fact that it still is winter, and I'm not going to rush anything into soil that still is pretty cold. I'd love to be out there planting everything in sight, but it is too soon. Shelly, Dorothy gave you good advice on planting times, and I'll just add this....I am at least 120 miles south of you and it is too early for me to put much of anything in the ground. Onions can go in now, but not much else. When you sow seeds or put transplants into the ground while the soil is still this cold, it can hurt them more than it helps them. They often will sulk and refuse to grow because the soil and even the nighttime air temps are colder than they like even if we are having sunny, warm days. I'm going to link Tom Clothier's Vegetable Seed Germination Data Base for you. Look at his numbers and you'll see the "best" temperature (the one at which the highest percentage of seeds sprouts in the shortest amount of time) for each kind of vegetable. I find this database enormously useful. Why sow seeds into soil that is 40 or 45 degrees if that particular seed sprouts best when the soil is 65 degrees? Why not wait until the soil temperatures are at the temperature that is best for quick germination? When seeds are put into cold ground, they'll eventually germinate....in 2 or 4 or 6 more weeks. During that time when the soil is too cold, you can lose a lot of seeds. They can rot, blow away, wash away in rainfall, or be eaten by hungry soil-dwelling critters. Why risk it? While strawberries and the herbs you mentioned can be planted in the ground now, they still will be vulnerable to late freezes and frosts, so I don't know that I'd rush anything into the ground yet. If you put them in the ground, watch them carefully and watch your forecast low temperatures very closely. The other day, our forecast low was 30 and our actual low was 22 degrees. I was glad I didn't have anything in the ground that was marginally cold-hardy because it either would have frozen to death or would have been severely damaged. In the springtime, even when daytime air temperatures are decently warm, nighttime lows often lag behind or fluctuate wildly. Soil temperatures warm up much more slowly then air temperatures. When the OSU Garden Planning Guide lists a range of planting dates, as it does, that say "Feb 15 - Mar 10", that doesn't mean that anybody anywhere in the state should start planting seeds and transplants February 15th. It means that the folks in far southeastern OK can start planting on February 15th. Those of us further north and further west need to wait a bit longer. The further north and west you are, the longer you should wait. That March 10th is the recommended date for extreme NW OK. I will put onions in the ground in mid-February of most years, but nothing else much goes into the ground until March. I don't plant much earlier than Dorothy does. That is because I have learned from experience that planting earlier than that does not give me an earlier harvest or a better harvest, and planting at the early end of the range often means there's lots of pest and weather challenges that can mostly be avoided by waiting a few more weeks to plant. If it sounds like I am hopping up and down hollering "Shelly, slow down!", well, I am. : ) I have a friend here in my area who insists on putting seeds in the ground a month earlier than I do every year. Guess which one of us gets the earlier harvest? (And if you're thinking it is the early bird planter, guess again.) I was in a nursery yesterday that had warm-season flowers and veggies in stock, and I was so shocked to see some of those plants in the stores in February. It instantly gave me an immensely bad case of planting fever. I had visions of buying plants, coming home and planting them and having a beautiful garden off to an early start. Then, I took a deep breath, said "it is too early" and left the store empty-handed. It was the right decision, and it wasn't an easy one either. Every gardener I know wants to start the planting season too early. Generally the well-seasoned gardeners like Dorothy and I know that there's little to be gained by starting too early....and guess how we learned that? Our spring weather is so erratic in nature that it always is risky to think the first big warm spell signals we should plunge full-tilt into planting. Very rarely will the weather warm up in February and stay suitably warm. If I feel like I have to plant something in February, I'll plant it in a container that can be carried inside when the more seasonably cold temperatures return. Heather, Welcome back to the gardening world! It is hard to picture your little type being big enough to eat dirt already. I bet y'all have been having the time of your lives watching him grow. They change so fast when they're so young, and I hope you're enjoying every minute of it. I think your onions will be fine even if they looked pretty dehydrated. They shouldn't have been at the store for so long yet that their energy would be totally depleted. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Tom Clother's Vegetable Germination Database

Thanks for the speedy reply Donna! I'll let you know how it goes :) I appreciate your help very much.

I swore up and down that I would never have a pair, they were the ugliest shoes I had ever seen and I don't allow ugly shoes in my closet. Then one day I had to take my husband to a special shoe store for diabetic shoes. While I was walking around I saw a display of what looked like pins. They had a little chihuahua there and since I have three real chihuahuas, I bought one. After I got home, I was wondering how I was going to wear this pin since the back wasn't like any pin I had ever seen before. Apparently, I am a little slow and it finally dawned on me that you were suppose to wear them on Crocks. So, off I went to Target ( it was closer than the shoe store I took hubby too which is way across town) to get a pair of $30.00 Crocks to put my $2.99 pin on. They didn't have any Crocks but did have some knock offs. I found a pair of pink swirly ones in my size and got them. Went home and put my little pin on the right one, that made the left one look naked. Went back across town to the shoe store and bought another chihuahua pin plus a turtle, parrot, sun and dolphin. I'm good to go Crock wise if not mentally. Vique.