The national service weather forecast has something I've never seen for Nashville... 100% chance of Severe T 'storms! We had straight-line winds blow through Tuesday night at home and the power not only went out, it went out for as far as the eye could see, including businesses and street lights. They came on and went off all night, rather like generators were coming on and running out of power too. Strange. Stay safe Dorph. Learning kids can wait, otherwise there won't be no kids to learn. Our classes start next week. Senior seminar and Foreign policy this time around. Only 4 classes left to achieve my undergrad. It's going by so quickly. Shoot, I'm still trying to time when I'll file my intent to graduate form. I'm afraid if I do it, they'll find more classes or I'll be jinxed some other way!

Forget 'weather' and instead think 'climate'. All herbs originated from Somewhere, and once you know where Somewhere is, you can find out what the prevailing climate is Somewhere. Hence, you can find out just what conditions each herb prefers, and you can do your best to emulate those conditions. For example, from your list: Lemongrass is native mainly to South Asia. Climate in South Asia is tropical or nearly so. Tropical climate means hot and humid all year round, with frequent (often daily) heavy rain. Rain runs off quickly except in monsoonal seasons where flooding can occur. From that, you can deduce the following: lemongrass likes the heat - that means HEAT. It likes a lot of water, but prefers that water to drain away quickly. You can also deduce that: it doesn't take kindly to frost, and may not survive a severe winter. It may need to be brought indoors if you want to keep it alive, but it must have plenty of water. From the fact that it's called lemonGRASS, you can deduce that it likes plenty of sunlight, and that it can be cut down heavily and still grow. Cut, grow, cut, grow. You can research the rest of the herbs on your list in the same way to learn what is likely to do well where you live, and what won't without special care. Obviously, outside its preferred climate, a plant won't behave it quite the same way as 'at home'. It could grow more slowly; it might die extremes of weather (too hot or too cold); its growth might be stunted. Etc. Take a look, while you're researching, at the temperatures the plant prefers to germinate from seed. That will tell you a lot, too. If it lives at high altitudes, it's probably accustomed to cooler temps, and its seeds might like refrigerating or freezing (stratifying) before they'll germinate. So - botany and geography can't really be separated, when it comes to plants! I live in the subtropics, so most plant will grow here all year round, and do very well, But I can't grow things like French Tarragon or Meadowsweet, and coriander is a winter-only crop, because even in shade the temperatures here are just too hot for them. The link below is a good starting point for finding out the native habitat of a lot of herbs. The URL below is a good site for learning about the kinds of conditions herbs require (including in many cases, temperatures). http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/D_search.html Here is a link that might be useful: herbs and spices

Paula, My DS didn't go to the Palo Pinto/Possum Kingdom area. They sent their crew on a day he wasn't working, but he has stayed in touch with them. He said they finally got to take a shower and sleep after 2 days out fighting fires and they wanted everyone to know how very kind all the local residents, volunteers and folks at the Red Cross shelter had been to the firefighters. Anything the firefighters need is being supplied.....clean undergarments, socks, lip balm, etc. I think DS would dearly love to be out there at the fire. He said the airport sent a brand new $900,000 fire engine that wasn't even officially 'in service' yet. It is a huge truck and should be able to help protect a lot of structures. San Angelo is in such a beautiful, albeit rugged and dry, part of the state. I cannot imagine being a gardener and living there. What you can plant there certainly is highly limited! The Possum Kingdom lake area is so spectacularly rough and rugged as well. Unfortunately, many of the trees around PK where the wildfire has grown to about 200,000 acres, are cedar and mesquite trees and both burn like crazy. Luckily, they often regenerate quickly from their roots in some cases after wildfire, because it takes a certain rugged type of tree to grow out of that limestone rock. Parts of the Possum Kingdom Lake/Graham area got about 1.5" of rain last night, which ought to help in the areas that received it, but most of that area didn't have rain. We had a raging Tstorm last night that dumped a half-inch of rain here, but we had lightning and thunder for hours. The storm-line moved through at 60 to 70 mph so I bet I have more tree limbs and leaves on the ground today, and probably more plums on the ground as well. The wind has brought down so much fruit in the last couple of weeks that I'm beginning to think I won't harvest any fruit as well. (Guess the poor harvest is to balance out last year's amazing fruit harvest.) There's a slight chance of severe weather tonight, so I guess the best we can do is simultaneously hope that rain falls for everyone but that the severe portion of the weather fails to materialize. Dawn

Hear hear.