They also make the White Lily flour which is what I use. On the White Lily recipe site..wa-a-ayyy down towards the bottom of the list of "Biscuits" is a plain biscuit recipe which I am guessing would be very close to the Pioneer one that you had. If you used yeast, then the Angel Biscuit recipe might be the one you want. Part of the secret is good light biscuits is not overhandling the dough. Treat it lightly. They should be moist and droopy when you put them on the pan. If the dough is easy to handle, the dough doesn't have enough milk in it and they are going to be dry. The amount of moisture in the air will also mess up a batch. If the dough seems too wet, add more flour. I never could figure out how the older generations could make great biscuits just by guess and by golly. but they always turned out well. Good Luck!!! like you said, there's nothing quite like a good fluffy hot biscuit with plenty of REAL butter.

What is frustrating about lisanthus? I think lots. First, to start from seed, most vendors seed them in Jan. I have one friend that seeds his for the greenhouse in Nov. The people that seem to have the best luck use bottom heat. Germination rate isn't too bad but it seems to be common to lose 10-25% to too much water or not enough water. They are incredibly picky plants the first 2 or 3 monthes. They hate being root-bound and once they are -- they are almost always doomed. If you buy plugs -- they too have trouble with moisture issues at first and most greenhouses plan on losing 5-10% of the plugs. I planted 1050 plants this year -- I still have one variety that has not bloomed and probably won't. I think they were too root bound when I got them. Most of those are alive but still small. Easily 850 are in bloom now but good drainage and regular moisture is essential. I don't bother with plugs as I may not be able to get them in the ground before they are root-bound. I buy finished plants but I think my success rate is a little better than buying plugs. That being said -- they are the workhorses of my late season bouquets. They make every bouquet look elegant and they will last 2 weeks easily. I'm certain that Maricahi is an annual. I don't have a Ball seed catalog in front of me. I usually grow Echo --its my favorite but I have grown other varieties including the shorter types in the past. They definitely don't self-seed in Iowa. I have never tried to save seed. Maybe someone knows something new about lisanthus. Every book, catalog that I have list them as annuals. Cathy

I love the logic of cool summer warm winter but I think the temp trend is more downward than anything,someone will have a wicked winter this year,howabout the west and warm this side of the rockies? I think a strong El nino and colder than normal winter is going to mean big snows or at least a lot of moisture somewhere. Here in Iowa since we went into this low sunspot activity in Dec 2008,our last month with above normal highs was Nov 2007,since then only March has had above normal high temps. My feeling is we are in for a wild/wet long cold winter here in the midwest.My hope is it's sunny mild and dry Nov-March.We'll see.

JerryA, We got a couple inches of snow here in Dallas on April 7, 2007, Easter Sunday. Snowed like crazy. My tomatoes had been in the ground 3 weeks at that point. Even being covered, they took an additional 10-14 days to recover from that and start growing again. I'd rather wait. Last two years have been terrible for growing tomatoes in DFW. Last spring it was a hot wind for weeks that prevented fruit from setting in April. In 2007 it was a tremendous amount of rain. All summer. I can only hope we have some mild weather in late april to set fruit. This year I am plating Celebrity, Super Beef Steak, Big Belgian, Sunmaster, Sweet Million, Burger, Best Boy, Sprite, Jetsetter. I picked each variety based on a full range of possible weather scenarios. Some produce very early, some do very well in the heat, some are season long producers if we end up with a nice mild summer. I'm ready!