I always start tomatoes, peppers, herbs, eggplant and wave petunias from seed under lights indoors. A bunch of other stuff too, but these are the staples. I can grow a very large volume of wave petunias from seed, whereas it would cost me a fortune just to buy a couple of these plants. I grow these from seed I collected from wave petunia plants. Even though they are hybrids, my wave petunia seeds always grow true to colour and I get tonnes of seed to keep planting. This year I'm going to get back to starting a few perennials from seed as well, but I will be winter sowing those in milk jugs. I always grow way more than I need personally, as I do stock gardens for my retired neighbours. Used to grow for my mom's garden as well, but now that she's passed and I no longer have to do that, I'm still trying to figure out the right volume of plants to grow. I'm happier with extra plants because I always manage to kill off a few too many early in the planting season. I like the backups. When I know I don't need them anymore, and my neighbours get sick of my plants, I start giving them away to strangers :)

Well you HAVE to grow tomatoes if you like eating them fresh. The supermarket tomatoes are not only overpriced, they're completely unripe and flavorless (picked barely yellow and gassed into redness). Basil and rosemary ought to be grown because they're only good fresh, and far too expensive in the grocery store. Likewise cilantro. Most other herbs are decent in their dried form, or have acceptable dried seeds or substitutes. But not those two. I grow Hungarian sweet paprika for both the quality and cost. It's better than buying those pricey tins of Pride of Szeged. Fruit-bearing vines and bushes are absolutely wonderful. They're more FAR flavorful, practically free, and you can get all sorts of varieties you'd never be able to get in grocery stores or even farmer's markets! Currants, gooseberries, raspberries, grapes, mulberries, blackberries, raspberries, black raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, loganberries, huckleberries, keriberries... The list goes on and on! Do you research and you'll be able to plant varieties that ripen in a staggered pattern, so you'll have fresh fruit from June to October! A gallon of berries for practically nothing, or $3.00 a pint at the grocery store. Hmm....

Aquabot and/or Dolphin. No, you do not need the remote. Also, if you get the Aquabot, get the Turbo. Does the pool in about an hour. Best cleaner for inground pool ever purchased.

Louise is the co owner of Odoms. A pleasant and knowledgeable lady. Obviously the orchid is named for her. They come to our meeting frequently. Louise explained that Maikai 'Louise' is a defect. The lip has the dots on the right side but the pedals have the spots on the outside of the pedals. All the other Maikai's have the spots on the inside like most other orchids with spots. But the defect is liked and there is no question of which Maikai it is. All hybridized 20 miles down the road... Judy, if potted it likes very good drainage, no moss. It will probably come in a plastic pot with black lava rock. I like the medium but I use terra cotta pots. It does well on cork mounted. I fill in the crevasses of the cork a little moss above the roots for a little drip action.