Hi Ilene, Thanks a lot for bringing up the issue of cold stratification. I didn't even think about mentioning it. I usually just cold-stratify by refrigerating seeds right in their packet, although I will put the seed packet in a zip lock bag with a little packet of silica so that the refrigerator's humidity doesn't have an adverse affect on the seeds. I know that winter sowing is wonderful and works for many people, but I don't do a lot of it here. I have a lot of critters, including raccoons and possums, that will destroy any plastic container I have to get to the little green shoots inside. Raccoons have a remarkable ability to open just about anything. The cats, too, think any container of soil is intended just for them, and they go to great lengths to remove the tops of containers too. If I could keep the winter-sown plants safe from all the critters, I'd do more winter sowing. I only direct sow some flowers, as you mentioned, and that includes poppies, larkspur, and drummondii phlox. With poppies, I just scatter seeds on any bare spot of ground (including brick-hard red clay and gravelly edges of the driveway), water with a spray bottle or watering can in the absence of rain, and I get poppies. They seem to sprout better in semi-dry years. In wet years, I don't get as many. At our house, the poppies seem to prefer to sprout in the middle of the gravel driveway, but then I just dig them up while they are tiny and put them wherever I want them. Cabbage needs to mature in the fall before it is regularly exposed to temperatures in the 40s, so my guess is that the nights got too cold before the heads had fully formed. Stress, in the form of too hot/too cold, too wet/too dry also can interfere with cabbage's growth, as can soil that is too acidic. You'll get the best quality cabbage heads if they mature while temperatures are 60-65 during the day. Next fall, try planting (either seeds or transplants) about 12 weeks before your "average first fall freeze" and your cabbage should be able to mature before the cold arrives. Fall-planted cabbage matures much more slowly than spring-planted cabbage, and I think it is the warmer days that keep it from maturing as fast. Cabbage will store for months, you know. It is hard to say what caused the hollow stems, but it likely was excess soil fertility. This is an issue more often with broccoli but sometimes you see it in cabbage as well. If you had left the root sytem/stump of the cabbage plant in the ground, it is likely it would have rebounded in the spring. Because the plant is a biennial, it most likely would have sprouted small heads from the stumps and you could have harvested those small heads at any time prior to the emergence of a seedstalk. Cabbage is one of the few crops that can give you a fall crop/early spring crop in that manner. Last year, just for fun (and partially to appease the "wild things" that simply MUST have something in the garden to eat in spring), I planted a row of ornamental cabbage in between two rows of tomato plants. I never paid much attention to the ornamental cabbage and, even afer I stopped watering when the drought drove our water bill sky-high, the cabbage kept growing. It is STILL out there, and still growing, although the heads are pretty small. The stems, however, are about 3 feet tall. The plants look odd, and I am about to remove them in order to prepare that bed for this year's corn planting, but I am sort of amazed the plants have been out there for a year. With your walking stick cabbage, you could stake it loosely and I have seen some of them survive for a long, long time even though the wind whips them around quite a bit at times. I'm not aware of cabbage being used as a companion plant for tomatoes, although I did use it myself last year as an ornamental to accompany the tomatoes last year. Mine, however, was just planted to give the rabbits something else to eat so they'd leave the tomato plants alone. I looked up cabbage in Louise Riotte's book CARROTS LOVE TOMATOES and it says that cabbages 'dislike' tomatoes. Well, they didn't seem to hurt mine. LOL Most of the common foliar issues that occur with tomatoes in Oklahoma are fungal or bacterial in nature and can be seed-borne (it just figures!), soil-borne, air-borne and water-borne, so there isn't much you can do to prevent them. You can try solarizing your beds by covering them with plastic all winter long. The only way to really combat these foliar diseases naturally is to mulch heavily under the plants to reduce soil splash which carries soil-borne diseases up onto the leaves, water only by soaker hose or drip line or the Texas Pot Method to reduce soil splash, and spray your tomato plants every 7-10 days with cholorothalonil (Daconil). If you use Daconil, it essentially coats the leaves and stems and helps prevent fungi and bacteria from attaching to the foliage. It WILL NOT prevent all diseases, but it buys you time and helps keep the plants going a few more days to a few more weeks. I haven't used Daconil in 10 or 15 years, but it is tempting. A couple of years when Early Blight arrived very early, I've been tempted to use Daconil, but talk myself out of it every time. One year I used Serenade and it seemed to help reduce early blight and I was very excited about that. The next year, though, it didn't seem as effective. I have had success in greatly reducing bacterial speck, bacterial spot and early blight with careful mulching and watering. The problem, though, is that EB can develop if leaves have moisture on them for as little as 15 minutes, so dew and rainfall are going to give it a chance to get started on your plants despite your best efforts to keep irrigation off the plant foliage If I am to be totally honest, I'd have to say that the ONLY way to successfully combat Early Blight is to spray your plants with Daconil on a 7-10 day schedule from day 1, but even that won't prevent all early blight although it will minimize it. I've linked the Oklahoma Mesonet below. On the left hand side, just click on the phrase soil temperature and it will bring up the current soil temp on the map in the center of the page. It also will give you an extensive soil temperature menu on the right-hand side of the page. You can click on all the different options to see soil temps at various depths, and to see averages for diferent time frames. Just click on what you want to see. I like to check soil temp in the early morning, before sunrise, because then I know how "cold" the soil is getting at night and then I like to check it in late afternoon to see how "hot" it is getting. Remember, too, that you can use an ordinary meat thermometer to check your own soil temps. This winter, by the way, we've had some of the warmest soil temps I've seen in the winter months since moving here. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma Mesonet

Lots of people make Pepper tequella. I make pepper beer(home brew). Takes a lot of smoke dried Habaneros to get any heat in a 5 gal. brew and a year of aging to get the peppers flavor and not just a little heat. I used about 1/4-1/2 lb. of dried haqbs in a 5 gal. beer brew of an American Pilsner to end up with mild heat and aq pretty good flavor after a years aging. I'd go for it but to get more of a flavor/heat blend you might have to age it some. Go to the Hot Pepper site to see about pepper beverages.They have a forum for food and Beverages using peppers.Ask there. Here is a link that might be useful: Hot Pepper site

Hi Andrew and Diana, Andrew, I should stop buying plants too, but I just can't seem to! LOL The thing about the Jungle Jack plants at our various Lowe's is that until yesterday, I had only ever seen for sale the 3 varieties that I mentioned at the top of this post. To see 'Elsie' AND 'Inca Gold' on that table was just too much--my wallet practically flew out of my pocket by itself. Diana: unfortunately, no writing on the trunk. These plants are identified by the small white tab stuck in the soil, like the one in my pic. Because JJ's potting medium is so loose and the plants get shuffled around so much, I think many of the ID tabs simply fall out. As a matter of fact, at one of the Lowe's I visited, the dozen plants for sale there had been moved inside after obviously having been devastated by whiteflies; adding insult to injury, many of the plants looked as though they'd been toppled and sloppily re-potted--at least half of those plants were missing the ID tab. I bought one of these plants, not more than 15 inches tall with a whopping 6 tips--and it has an inflo, so we'll find out what it is yet this season. I'll post a pic of 'Mystery JJ Plumie #2" in this thread soon. I believe you're a friend of John's, so you would know better than me, but I would tend to think that John would not send out noIDs to the FL wholesaler. Perhaps if irun from St. Pete reads this thread, irun can tell me the name of the wholesaler--no one at my store could tell me. At any rate, it's all for fun. I will be sure to post pics of all the new plants when they bloom--hopefully the flower will make the mystery plants' identities obvious! In the meantime: JJ plant w/ slender, upright growth habit, and pointed (not rounded) leaves? Anyone...anyone?? I'll entertain guesses!

LOL Coookebook!!! After the martinis we have a couple of husbands drive us to & from the restaurant. That way we can be carefree about imbibing. Taking into account that poem, I guess we still have to be a LITTLE careful!! Well, due to my limited stock, I was able to test two different drinks yesterday. One, I had found on the internet on a vodka company website (smirnoff I think). It was very simple, a combination of vodka, frangelico and a twist of lemon. I put several drops of lemon in it and it tasted really good! Then I decided to try the exact same recipe only with Creme de Menth instead of Frangelico. Bingo! It was delicious and GREEN so it fit in as a holiday drink. I think the lemon adds an extra tang and dilutes the alcohol just a little bit. I'm going to do that same martini again tonight except I'm going to pay attention to proportions so that I can make a pitcher full for the party. I do REALLY appreciate all the recipes because I have a Martini Party every year or year and a half where we drink four to five different kinds of martinis along with munchies. I've saved all these recipes because I try to have different kinds every year. I know the recipe I've picked is as far asay from a real martini as it gets, BUT it's green, it's good, and it will look so cool in a martini glass with a red cherry!! Thanks everyone!!