Hi all, My first plant was an African violet. My grandmother was at fault. It was 1979 and I was about 23 years old and in college. I decided I would like to have a house plant and went over to her place to get some pothos cuttings. She grew wonderful looking pothos like nobody I've ever seen since. Anyway she was really thrilled that I was interested in having of houseplant and cut me several good lengths of pothos stems. When we were done with that she took me over to the window and showed me an African violet. She told me that I could take one of those leaves, put it in a glass of water, and that it would grow new plants from the base of the stem. I thought to myself, "no way", but I took a couple of those leaves home, stuck them in a glass of water as she instructed and indeed after couple months little plantlets started to grow from the bottom of the stems. I then planted them in African violet soil and had two plants. I soon took more leaves and started even more African violets. I thought it was such a coup how I was able to produce these "free" plants. Although by the time I bought the pots and soil those plants were not free. lol I then started propagating other plants. I even grew a lemon tree from a lemon seed I had harvested when making lemonade one time. My surprise was that the thing had thorns. Even though I liked my plants I can say that I was really in love with them. That would come later. I graduated from college and married a girl who was in ROTC and went into the army six months later. She was immediately sent to different schools and we traveled around the country to three different places in less than a year. Keeping plants going under those conditions was not very good and I lost a lot of plants, but not my African violets. I wound up in Washington, DC and worked for what was pretty much a white collar "sweat shop". It wasn't uncommon for me to work 60 to 70 hours a week. I needed somewhat of a diversion occasionally though and I found that diversion to be houseplants. I was very lucky to share a corner office with a couple of other people. The sunlight was incredible, and the windows were tinted so that the sun was not too harsh. I bought several starter plants and had them around my desk. To make a long story short I had a spider plant that was just magnificent and I had a Swedish Ivy that was to die for. The Swedish Ivy hung from a 9 foot ceiling and was basically a pillar all the way to the floor. I could not get my arms around the circumference of the plant. Anyway that's when my love of plants really blossomed. I continued to purchase and propagate African violets and had several to give away. My wife, who would eventually become my ex wife, and I moved to Denver. I then became acquainted with other gesneriad cousins of African violets. I went to African violet and gesneriad shows annually and met several people who grew these plants. I love all of my plants but my first love is African violets and their gesneriad cousins. Larry

We're in Poughkeepsie, and we just started 2 trays of assorted veggies and herbs, including tomatoes, peppers, yarrow, and parsley. With an indoor lighting and bottom heating setup, our first seeds germinated in 3 days, and after 6 days we're already seeing some 2 inch seedlings. The lighting and heat projects were done very cheaply! If you're interested, details are on our brand spanking new blog about our experiences gardening in the Hudson Valley: http://naseersiddique.com/greenthumbgeeks Even though a foot of snow fell in the last 24 hours, it's Spring in our grow room (dining room)!

hi y'all, just about finished getting my garden up - tomtatoes, eggplant, summer herbs are in and I will be planting the summer beans, squash and melon tommorow. Talk about weird weather - its very warm here but the rule of thumb according to the oldtimers in my area is we are not safe from a freeze until the full moon after the spring equinox. While it seems warm, I am noticing all the native plants are still blooming on schedule like they should be. I am keeping covers close to everything just in case - the natives are usually smarter than us gardeners! Yup, I haven't see many bees or for that matter, flying critters in general. The hard winter we had may have taken a toll on the polinators. This winter has also convinced me I really cannot win - the one winter where we don't get a hail storm or wind storm stomping through smashing things - and instead we get freezes into the teens that kills everything. I watched the thermometer drop 45 degrees one day! And now we are probably going into a drought - glad I picked an "easy" hobby....isn't that what they say in all the magazines?!?! and southshore,big hugs from Texas - this is gotta be a really hard year for you! lets hope u get the best harvest ever this year!

It was very cold, windy and rainy here and I spent a lot of the day getting things re-situated from having the house tented for termite extermination. I don't mind the dead ants and the dead termites but I hate seeing the dead spiders. I did a lot of stair climbing, lifting, twisting and squatting so I got my exercise. Tomorrow I am going back to water aerobics!