Hi, I am interested in your lilac zinnia seeds. Check my list and see if there is anything you would like to trade for. Thanks Diana.

I wanted to comment on the corn, mostly for people from my zone or near it....I will not grow Hickory King again. However, I will grow Hopi blue again for sure. There is only one spot on my property where corn will grow, a sweet spot that I think got lots of applications of composted horse manure over the last 50 years. Corn is exotic to me and very interesting. I got even more interested in it after reading 'An omnivore's dilemma'. I have been trying various varieties just for fun and to see how feasible it is to grow a crop in a 1/4 acre for grain (...not very....). It is OK, but just for holiday type meals. As I said, it will only grow well on that patch... I will have enough for corn bread to go with the New Year's black eye peas. It was nice to have something made from a non GMO, completely organic non hybrid corn, and share it with our loved ones, some of them do care about these things. The Hickory King grew vigorously and gave us decent production, but the stink bugs were on it like it was going out of style. It was a real pain to take the kernels off the cobs, since I sorted out the ones that got stink bug damage. It was also more difficult to grind, and i could not get rid of a bunch of really hard bits on it. For comparison the Hopi blue gave a larger production, grew as vigorously if not more, had no stink bug damage and was very easy to grind up. Could it be that the Hopi blue is a flour corn and the Hickory King a dent corn? I also loved the blue corn bread a lot better, even though I also like the flavor of the hickory king. Making corn bread out of freshly ground corn meal is so tasty, even with a less favorite variety. Anyway, as I said I love Hopi blue for corn bread and it does well here (in case any zone niner reading this is into trying it). I originally grew Hopi blue for tamales though, but I did not like it for tamales. I am still looking for some good tamale corn, and I would prefer blue. I know some blue corn is used in tamales since we get some at out local Farmer's market in South Pasadena, so what corn do they use? Thanks for the compliments on the raviolis. They went over big here in this crowd too, so they are on request again for the Christmas menu! Enough time between Thanksgiving and Christmas that I will feel like making them and eating them again, so that is OK. Also, first year that we grow ENOUGH winter squash. Curcubita moscata is our friend.

Beautiful pics Becky! I grow all those too. Lemon cucumbers are the very best cukes and Julietes 'son muy deliciosa!' Julietes make the best sun dried tomatoes (I use my oven set on 200 degrees). Oil them with Extra Virgin Olive oil and bake until leathery but still juicy. Freeze them for later use, if they don't all get eaten first. I really do love you photos. Artistically arranged in that beautiful colander. I can see all the glorious Temecula sunshine shining into your kitchen. Lovely. (Waaah...makes me homesick). ~Annie

That's funny I had a grapevine growing in my garden,mine is called kitchen garden,fenced in,gate and all,Grapes were ripe,my 4 grandkids at the time were 6,5,4,3 2 boys 2 girls.reminded me of the little rascals.Theyd say grandma can we pick some grips,Id say yes they would go over one by one to go eat grips.theyd stand over there and just eat till they had enough.So cute Strawberry season my little red head grand daughter would pick them and cherry tomatoes right out of the garden.