18 varieties 164 plants WOW it's a lot, however it would be OK for a professional gardener, congratulation. Most of the seeds I have bought were germinated except some seeds from EU :-). The seeds I have collected from the fresh pods have grown better and trouble free. I have done two times all of them have grown very well. The funny thing is when I have sent the seeds I have collected to my friend none of them were germinated. I blamed to him :-). All the seeds I have bought from www.pepperlover.com and our local online shops sent to my friend were 99% germinated. There must be something else to do with seed storage, I think. I was just a windowsill gardener now I have about 100 chili plants :-) I have space but hesitate to put my plants near the hedge, because the hedge have some harmful pests and insects. As an alternatives I keep some of the plants in small containers to grow compact. 18 out of 20 is a very good germination rate. I have never grown asparagus before probably next year I will try. Now I am planing to built some Earth Tainer self-watering containers to grow some vegetables, I like this self-watering system, it is the best SWC I have ever known. Good luck to your tomatoes swamp and aparagus. Caelian

Others used to be those in my immediate environment and in my small town. One is much more categorized in the home environment, usual thought of belonging to a certain group or age bracket and stereo-typed by that. I am not criticizing this, but it puts limitations on who one speaks to. I have been on the Garden-Party and so on the Garden Web since my first computer (think it was '89)and it is obvious not every one is what they seem to be, but the phonies usually don't last, you can't invent an image and live up to it for too long, cracks begin to show - it really strengthens ones' B/S detector. Age differences don't mean near as much, shared interests are more important. I learned to enjoy different cultures, particularly after I ended up on Facebook and connected with the world of writers and poets. It all has been good, I don't drive any more and don't get around all that much, so it's a window.

It is science but it is ruled by emotion. What?!? There will be some roses suited to your climate but they "just don't excite me" and there will be roses that shouldn't thrive in your garden, but you are so enamored that you must have them and will do whatever it takes to grow them. Some will work out and some won't. That's the fun and passion of rose gardening! And you will learn so much the hard way. I am trying to find some room for more Chinas and teas by SP'ing more DA roses that I "had to have" but have not thrilled me like the Chinas and teas which were bred for my climate. But if I hadn't tried the DA's, I would still be lusting after these roses, grown in more temperate climates, from pictures in the catalogs and here on the web. Now, I know I can rarely have a quality DA plant. But Chinas and teas.... they will be happy in my garden and I will be happy with them. Have fun! Buff

I kind of agree with both halfdecaf an kailuamom's perspective: first, I think that we can't really fault the original speaker because we don't really know what he said. There are some versions of what he said that make perfect sense to me, others that don't, lets give him the benefit of the doubt and not attack a "philosophy" that he, himself, has not explained to us.The original post's vesion of the speaker's words made me think of how annoying rote "sorry's" are *especially* when they've been demanded of a child, given, and then abandoned. I'm thinking of the kid who spills something at your house and never says sorry except that the parent demands they do and then...nothing...they run off and play and the parent cleans up. Or the kid who viciously pushes your kid in the park and says "sorry" when told to but then the parents and kid walk away from you and your sobbing, snot smeared child. I think we would all be in agreement that a coerced sorry is not sufficient and that an educational method that relied *only* on coercion to produce the word but not on coercion or serious practice to change the behavior would be at fault. I'd like to read the speaker's words in the most generous way and figure that he's saying that sorry alone is not enough and that we have to work, long and hard, with kids to make them the kind of people who can realize that they have hurt someone else and take affirmative steps to make the hurt right. It sounds like kailuamom and I have the same kids, or the same parenting strategy. Neither of my children has any trouble saying they are sorry--and really meaning it. I don't mean "sorry for stepping on your toe" or "sorry for being a jerk" but like this "I'm sorry, mommy, that you are having to take me out to my friend's birthday party when you aren't feeling so well. Thank you for doing it." Or "I'm sorry that you had to make me soup and crackers (because I"m sick) when you already made a different dinner for everyone else." In other words, their sense of what they are doing, their duties towards other people, extend far beyond "don't step on people's toes" to "don't inconvenience people" and "don't take other people's kind actions for granted." I remember another mother in my baby group with my firstborn asking me "how I *made* her so empathetic?" and I just cracked up, you can't make someone empathetic. but you certainly can work on them, and have to work on them, to make them attentive to those around them. So sure we start out, even when they are babies, saying "oh! I'm so sorry you fell down! let me kiss it" and saying to them "oh, say sorry to little dulcibella for grabbing her toy." But as they get older our strategies for working with them and modeling for them have to get more sophisticated because they are more sophisticated. Modeling the behavior you want is the first thing you have to do but how many of us are even more self centered than our children? How many times do we demonstrate to them that we take the actions, gifts, griefs, etc...of other people for granted? IF the only "sorry"s they see are ungracious they will be ungracious. If they see their parents courteously deferring to each other, to the grandparents, to strangers they are going to learn (eventually) that "Sorry" goes a lot farther than just a word said after an incident, its a whole way of thinking about the situation and the other person. If you are still ordering at ten year old, or a fifteen year old, to say sorry you need to rethink your educational strategy because its not working. By the time they are fifteen most social behaviors should be pretty well engrained--or else they are rebelling against them for reasons that need discussion and airing. At that point they are also old enough to experience the natural consequences of failure to observe social niceties, as well as failure to be empathetic. If you are a jerk to your cousins or your friends, well, they won't play with you. If you are a jerk to your older relatives or older people, well, they won't do whatever things you've been counting on them to do. If a ten or fifteen year old kid behaves badly and doesn't say they are sorry--or even behaves selfishly and seems unaware of it--then just forcing them to say sorry (though it may be necessary) j ust isn't enough. So I guess I'm saying that I can see situations in which the original speaker is absolutely right--of course if he really said what was described I think he's an idiot. But there has never been a shortage of idiot motivational speakers. abfab