My roses are leafing out beautifully, in spite of many leaves on new shoots all dried up from frostburn, but the warm stable spring seems to be here. The roses sure loves temps between 60 and 70 degrees F and it rained all night and day and we are going to get more during the week. and then it is going to be warmer and sunnier again. I can litterally hear everything grow ... everything is getting greener every day. Of course I shop like crazy these days. I have almost run out of space, but I am potting all the new roses I buy. The new Meilland roses roses arrived from France in the usually very poor condition (all roots chopped off). I potted them in big pots with 3-5 roses in each and hope that they grow better roots during the season so I can plant them in the fall. Also some new Tantau roses are being potted I just want to see the flowers and smell them before I decide whether I like them or not. I have bought a lot more companian plants (Perennials and herbs) and have planted most of them this saturday. The Iris I planted this spring are shooting new leaves and I look forward getting more during the summer and again in the fall. I have also gotten some ornamental grasses I look forward seeing this year. I sowed more foxgloves, salvias and real opium poppies this weekend. I constantly need many foxglowes seedlings since they do not flower the first year. I have also gotten a few more clematis. Some of the climbers really surprises me by the impressive new growth they put out, they are going to look great in 5 or 6 weeks from now when they start blooming. Tomorrow I have to go buy a lot of plants for my clients gardens and plenty of containers. Off course I am buying lots of roses (for one big garden I need many white roses) and they also need to have the presummer pots arranged. I also got a new client today ... he has a neglected garden with bad weeds that needs spraying with herbicides. I hate that! But in this case it is called for, because of very obnoxius perenial weeds. His wife had a stroke and he has not had time to do any gardening since she needs so much care, so he has hired me to improve and replant, and maintain their garden. I can not take any more clients since I have all the work I can handle ... but I made an exception in his case. I will have to hire another gardener to help out if I am going to expand my business more. So I just have to fertilize the roses in 2 weeks from now and then wait and hope we are going to have very good first flush of roses with warm dry conditions for some weeks. Oh and Btw one of my roses have canker really bad ... I am not quite sure If I must cut the infected parts away or if I shall wait until the first flush. And one rose against a wall (Gruss an Teplitz) has the worst case of BS I have ever seen this early in the season. Strange since no other roses have it and I did spray it once already. Every season is so unique and have different challenges.

Hi Everyone, Love this talk of soup. Keeping the hamburger soup recipe above - sounds great. I'm still using frozen tomatoes from last summer's garden and they taste great. Got some seed trades in the mail and my seed order from Thompson & Morgan...I'm in heaven here! It's raining outside now. Earlier there was freezing rain - truck over turned off the highway in a farmers field. Judging by the distance into the farm field a layman's guess is the driver was speeding (many do on our local highway) and must have hit the slushy/ice on the road edge and got pulled off the road. I pray whoever was in the truck makes it through this whole affair. Absurd weather for mid-January. Weird storms all over North America. Sitting here tonight, fire roaring, watching National Treasure 2 I see dried soapwort seed heads on my coffee table, envelopes in a plastic tub with last years seeds, hot cuppa tea, lip balm, new seed packets, a red poinsetta and an ornamental garden bird. In front of the large window rosemary and baby sitting a christmas plant container for my MIL while on holiday. I have to have growing plants around me (there are more). Blooming pink begonias are on the plant shelves in front of the patio doors in the other room - bless their hearts blooming like they do. Such troopers. My large geranium is resting right now from flowering. Thinking of taking cuttings to start some new geraniums for this summer. I am that sad person in the fall asking - are your going to toss that? I am the plant version of the pet rescue folk. I love sharing your day while we plan next summers gardens, get through this weird weather and pass the winter days. Keep talking dirt to me - I never tire of it! Cheers, Peggy

Shot, how come my sunflowers never smile at me like that?? =( Glad ya'll are getting some reprieve today. We didn't get any today but were blessed with more than I could catch on Monday. We've been lucky I guess over here on the state line all spring. It was starting to get dry again but we got a downpour Monday night and I was able to collect about 160 gallons just in random buckets, trash cans, etc...around the drip line until they filled to the point of overflowing. Oddly weather.com's rainfall totals for my zip code totaled 0.02 which I find very hard to believe unless it just sat right over our house the whole time. I just bought a used 1700+ gallon above ground pool off of craigslist for $25 bucks that I'm going to reassemble and tuck away in the woodline downhill from the house where no one can see it. I'm hoping this will make a great inexpensive cistern for piping our rainwater and grey water into to use for the garden which should take the burden off of our well and ease the concern of it running dry. But I can't put it up until we clear and level the spot for it and rig a cover so the mosquitos and critters can't get in. Gravity will get all of the water into the cistern but I also need to invest in a good heavy duty pump to get the water from there uphill into the garden when I need it. I've borrowed some feed barrels temporarily from a friend so I've got about 400+ gallons of rainwater in reserve at the moment that needs to go into the cistern/pool asap. Danielle

Less than impressive. I was crying the blues last week because little black bugs got into a number of the turnips, that were growing well - I guess they thought so, too. Then quite a few of the tomatoes, which had been growing well, developed black leaves and stems, some of them on most of the plant, and where I hadn't been able to see the ground in part of the plot, and was preparing the staking for it, it got to where I could see the ground in a number of areas, and where they were thick, there were a number of stems and branches that were lying on the ground, some wet and rotting ... and some dry. I got up earlier than usual this morning, but instead of going out in the cool time, did a few things in the house and when I went out and began untangling some baler twine, it was so hot that I went inside of the shed where it was cooler. I need to add some strings to the pea vines and when I went to the south garden to do it there, found that the brace line from one of the end stakes had broken, so two at one end had fallen, letting all of the strings fall on both rows, with pea vines lying everywhere. I knew that I'd need to weed, so had taken the cultivator and did a lot of cultivating and pulling weeds from the peas, kohlrabi, peppers and watermelon. There's a huge amount of weeds yet needing to be pulled. I'll take the axe and chair down there soon to reposition the end stakes on the two rows of pea vines, then reposition the vines. I find that the edible pod vines grow much larger than the regular pea vines. Pea vines, one row and two rows of bean vines in the original garden need some more lines added, as well, and then there's more staking of the tomatoes, and cleaning out the crud from them ... a famous gardener told me on a radio phone-in on Monday to stake them, as they needed to have air circulate to stop the moulding. And, how does one remove the stuff that's contaminated without dropping spores off of them ... and avoiding touching the good parts of the plants with one's contaminated hands?? There are peas that need to be picked, and a bunch of beans, plus some lettuce and zucchini. Need to wash dishes, do a laundry and vacuum, as well. Plus - my right knee is showing out of my overalls, and I have some denim to patch it. Sometime when I can find some time. Also ... I need to sew some hook-and-loop fastener tape to some elastic so that I can make a retaining belt for my underwear briefs, several of which are so old that, the elastic having lost its zip, like to hang down around my knees: not very useful, when it's located like that! Need to get some milk, too. And some investment records that I keep are behind, as well. Oh, yes - I need to write a cheque for the Income Taxc people, as well ... they compound daily on amounts owing that are unpaid. I asked my furnace oil dealer the other day, who charge interest rate of 1.5 - 2.0% per month on unpaid balances after about 60 days, what rate they pay on credit balances, as they've held a credit in my account for several months. As it turns out that they pay zero per cent ... so I had them cut me a cheque and I need to deposit that. That should keep me busy for a while. ole joyful