I'm over in the Sandhills in NC and this was also my first year growing garlic. Didn't do so well then realized I planted all hardneck which do well up North, not so good down here! Elephant ear are about the only ones that produced cloves, the rest just single bulbs bearly larger then what I planted in the first place. I ordered 6 varieties of artichoke garlics from a grower in Louisiana and have a few cloves to spare if you are interested... I heard creole grow well down here but am having a hard time finding any to even buy, everyone seems to already be sold out. Anywise, yell at me if you want to try any of my artichoke. And yell to me if you end up ordering creole and want to share a couple cloves with me! Laura

OK, here are the pics after the cabs were stained. We went with a deep mahogany to coordinate with the tiles, granite and backsplash. The results have really exceeded our expectations. My contractor says that the shine of the top coat will tone down over the next few weeks. Note: I have many skills, but photography is not one of them. So please excuse the crappy pics :) The stain is really a dark brown/mahogany -- not black as seen in some of the pics. Here is a picture with the flash on -- shows some of the brown tones

I have a 36 in sink base with a 60/40 double bowl SS undermount sink and I love it. I measured the sink bowls to find one that would fit a small dish drain but I find that the flat rack in the bottom is sufficient and I have never bothered with a drainer. I love the clean look of the counter with no dish drain on it and I like having the smaller sink to dry dishes or rinse something or wash dishes in during holidays. I ended up with the Kraus KBU24 and am very happy with the quality.

This is the second year for my Falstaff, and so far I'm loving it. It's not pink, but deep magenta, fading to purple (and a nice purple, not a sickly one). The flowers are durable in rain, the flowers nod, which I like (and which might help them from collecting water). So far, not much frying in the sun (although smaller flowers with the 90F heat). Biggest disappointment: almost no fragrance, but when detectable, it is old rose. First flush flowers were about 3". Flowers don't flatten out but keep this cupped form. It's starting to put out a second flush now when WS2K is busily frying its first flush in the sun and mildewing. Most remontant roses (i.e. hybrid teas) here put out a nice first flush, then a few miserable looking flowers in the heat if any, then another nice flush in the fall. Falstaff mildewed a bit this year. We don't get blackspot here. Photo bloom color is accurate. In my tough climate, it takes a while for plants to grow. Planted in the spring of last year, it did nothing the rest of the year. This year the bush is very vigorous (like climber vigorous), upright, but not stiff, and the new basals are almost as tall as the bush now. The leaves are matte and nicely formed, very old rose. Here's the first flush. I hope it gets all big and gangly.