LOL, the purple heart of winter sowing! Hi all, my first year WSing and no battle scars yet. I used my Swiss Army knife to cut up the milk jugs - haven't tried thicker containers yet though. The awl on the Swiss Army knife works excellent for punching hoes in the bottom. An awl is normally used for punching small holes in leather or wood and is very sharp. It slid through the bottom of milk jugs like butter! Also used the small knife blade to cut the flaps which also cut very easily and safely. Seems simpler than heated knives and soldering tools? This pic shows the Awl that comes with the knife. I slid it in and gave a little twist to open the hole a little. It was very quick and easy, and quite easy to control.

Thanks Dawn for posting your mw being up. I would be almost positive that it is indeed viridis. You are correct that the mw tends to come up faster by the edge of the road more than likely due to the warmth of the pavement, and tendency to hold water. Congrats upon seeing your 1st Monarch!!! Even if it looked pretty fresh, it was still your 1st sighting, and they are always the most special. Probably a Houston migrant looking to leave some eggs. I will post your sightings. I always look forward to your reports. They are appreciated. :) How wonderful to hear that you got some much needed rain. I know that you were really dry, and it will make a big difference. Okiegardener, good to hear from you. Like Randy said, it is probably too late to think about planting some native mw seeds in April. Alot of them them require cold stratification. But, tropical mw does very well in Ok. Occassionally, it will reseed for me in warmer winters, but I have never had it come back from the roots in Okla. I have been able to overwinter some in pots in the garage. The Monarchs do tend to prefer it in laying their eggs. What part of Okla. do you live? You may have some luck finding the A. tuberosa in some nurseries. It is perennial, and comes back every year. The blooms are gorgeous, and really attracts the butterflies, but does not do well in the heat. The A. incarnata (Swamp mw) does well in a lower wetter area with morning sun in central Ok. Sometimes you can find it in nurseries. I would highly second Randy's recommendation in trying to make one of Marilyn's plant shows from Wildthings Nursery. She is a dear friend, very knowledgeable about natives and butterflies, and has quite the green thumb. She carries alot of hard to find butterfly host plants that she grows from seed or propagation. E-mail her, and perhaps you can work something out. Good luck with your butterfly garden! Randy,hope things are going well for you and your daughter. Are you about to get caught up on your ice storm mess? I'm sure that your daughter is continuing to win gymnast awards. Thanks for checking on your mw. :) Hope that the Monarchs stay put. Forecast of high of 49 on Friday, with temps down to 30's on Saturday with possible SNOW???? Oh,no. Keep in touch!

Azura, last year was my first real veggie garden, and I learned a lot. There were successes and failures, but I enjoyed it so much. Skybird is right about you wanting to make it bigger next year. I created a separate bed for the herbs this year, just so I could plant more veggies in veggie garden. So far, I planted onion sets and peas (twice). I also have five kinds of lettuce, and broccoli sprouts that were wintersown, that I might plant out as soon as the crazy winds die down. Plus there are tomatoes and peppers in my kitchen windowsill, and tomatoes that were wintersown but haven't germinated yet. I'm also direct sowing carrots maybe this week, but the cucumbers, canteloupes, and beans won't get planted for another month or so. My goal is for as much variety as possible, even if it means just one or two plants of each - 5 kinds of beans, 4 kinds of canteloupe, 5 kinds of carrots, 4 kinds of cukes, 7 kinds of peppers, and as many different tomatoes as I can cram into the space that's left, and the Earthbox I just bought. I'd rather have too many plants and have to give some away, than to realize I have empty space in the garden, and not enough time to start something else before the end of the season. The bed and soil look great, and I wish you a bountiful harvest. Bonnie

Hello Everyone! Wow can you believe its barely 90 days till Christmas! Time will fly by and before we know what happened we will all be working full boar to get things done! *LOL* Anyway thats my NORM for the holidays! I just finished 24 Halloween Treatbags for our friends and my hubby's co-workers. I always send something for the holidays starting with Halloween. They get a kick out of the things. With his crew there are only 4 small children so I made each of them a jack o lantern clown doll and used the plastic pumpkins for the heads - we will fill them with goodies closer to the day. Only one of my friends have grandchildren and they will be getting the same thing. My other major project is making 14 vests for the members of my Red Hat Society group - I'm the founding queen and wanted to do something really special for our first Christmas as a group. I'm using the fabrics from WalMart and embellishing them with ribbons, rhinestones and pearls. By using my serger I can construct 2 per day and then take twice that long to play at dolling them up! Then to top off my busy list I couldn't resist the "NEED" for a poncho!!! I found the most gorgeous yarn at WalMart, its beige/tan with flecks of various blues. Think it will be perfect with denim! Good luck to everyone on your projects and here's hoping you have a perfect holiday season. HUGS - Jude, from KS