Alexa.....the sad thing is....the picture doesn't even come close in showing it's real beauty....in full sun...I have a terrible time getting any yellows to look correct. You will be very happy with Emerald Splendor...it is really nice. Roger.....Thanks..I will give it a try...:) msrose....your pic of Early Days is perfect...that is what it really looks like....isn't it such a gorgeous colour....almost like watermelon...thanks for posting yours...:) Nancy....glad you enjoyed them....Contential Holiday is an FFO for me...it looks like it will end up being a nice keeper...hopefully it will start really showing it's stuff....I'll try taking a little bit later pin the morning pic of it. If you will remind me in the early Spring I'll be glad to send you a couple fans of Emerald Splendor....just remind me...i'm getting OLD....and very forgetful...it is so much purdier in person then the pic can even come close to showing....IMHO..:) Thanks Betsy...KLW is getting better each day...it sure is putting up alot of blooms for a newly arrived potted up plant...:) Rick.....oh I forgot another nice one that bloomed for the first time this morning...it is also an FFO.... American Freedom.....

Rita, Thank you.I like this Wild One, too.Its big and bright. Hi Nancy. Yes, thank you, I AM doing better. No Cane today to walk. Linda. Thank you,I am doing much better today. Christene. Yes, those are little mini Roses, a yellow one and a pink one. Debra and Kay, thank you for looking and the comments, too. Jean

Dale, I'm planning to plant my garlic this weekend too. Susan, The ripening of most warm-season veggies seems to slow down as autumn deepens. I believe it is the combination of fewer hours of daylight and cooler temperatures. To a certain degree, the cooler weather and less intense sunlight also seems to affect tomato flavor. The flavor of tomatoes harvested in November or December just isn't the same as the flavor of tomatoes harvested in June, July or August. Some years I have harvested several brown paper grocery bags full of fully green tomatoes with no color breaking in advance of the first hard freeze. Since very few of them will ripen (it depends on the variety and on how green they are), I usually use them for canning or for fried green tomatoes and/or give them away to friends who use them for the same things. This, however, is not one of those years. Most of the green ones I have are currants or cherries, with only a few larger ones. Dorothy, We stayed a toasty 43 last night, so everything in our garden here should be 'safe' for at least another week. My tomatoes didn't recover enough to give many of the new green fruit time to ripen unless we have an incredibly late hard freeze and I just don't think the weather pattern indicates a very late first freeze. I'll get some ripe cherries and currants, but likely not any ripe big ones. The hoppers finished off our beans, but I still have okra, peppers and sweet potatoes, and lots of herbs. I didn't plant anything for fall. August was too hot and dry, we were starting to go to grassfires quite a bit and the water bill was already scarey high. I thought we were going to be very dry and going to fires so decided I wouldn't try to plant cool-season crops for the fall gardn. Then a foot of rain fell in Sept. (most of it was from topical storm moisture plumes that traveled up here after topical storms or hurricanes hit Texas/Mexico), which was just too much rain for planting anything new since we had standing water forever. Everything left in the garden in Sept. developed fungal issues, except for the sweet potatoes. Since I have been neglecting the garden while busy with other things, I now have lovely crabgrass and morning glories growing among the regular flowers in the flower border that runs alongside the veggie garden. As soon as it is less snakey, I'll clean out that flower border at least. Apparently all that rain in Sept. stirred up the snakes because we have had huge numbers of them in Sept. and Oct., many more than normal, and they primarily seem to be hunting and eating frogs since the frog population was huge this year. Jo, Brandywine can be a heart-breaker. The best Brandywine year I ever had was 2003 which was a drought year. I think we had a pretty mild late winter and early spring and I planted them very, very early and covered them up well on cold nights. It was our worst drought year ever, and I did water like a maniac. I think our rainfall for the whole year was just a smidgen over 18". In that horrible drought year, I had about 8 or 9 Brandywine plants (I had Brandywine Sudduth, Platfoot Yellow Brandywine, Red Brandywine, and Brandywine OTV) and had so many Brandywine tomatoes in July that I was giving them away because we couldn't eat them fast enough. Some of our friends couldn't believe we grew tomatoes that tasted that good and had never given them one before. I told them it was because we rarely get a ripe Brandywine here at all, much less 'extra' ones to give away. I haven't had a bountiful Brandywine here since then. I wish I knew what was so magical about that year so I could duplicate it. I think it likely was that I planted very early---probably in early March. About 4 years later we saw a shift in weather here that has given us at least one freezing night in early May every year since then, so I now plant my tomato plants about 6 weeks later than I was planting them in the early 2000s. It makes me crazy and I think it is one reason I haven't been able to have that kind of Brandywine year again. Dawn

That must be my Gilded by Grace, Nancy. I told you it didn't like the cold! LOL. The blooms will get better as it matures. The blooms were gorgeous here but it was the weak rebound from winter that I disliked about it. I did save a couple puny fans and don't expect them to bloom this year. I had a hard time parting with it because my oldest daughter's name is Grace. I love Abby Davisson! The Hillbilly Heart from you did not come back this year. It was one of three that died over the winter. I can't explain it because it was beautiful last summer. I lost it and Eye of the Hurricane, which was always weak here, and I lost Look Here Mary, which I can't explain either. I usually don't lose plants because of the snow cover.....and we had plenty which makes it even harder to figure out why. A few plants are struggling from winter but the majority look better this year than they ever have. Go figure.