Warren, I was shocked when I first tested my own soil and water pH after we moved here. I expected it to be alkaline, but I wasn't expecting it to be nearly as bad as I eventually discovered it was. It probably would have been smarter for me to bring along a test kit and test the soil before we bought the place. (Live and learn.) Bon, Did you plant the Brussels Sprouts in winter for a spring harvest or in late summer for a winter harvest? In our climate, the temperatures often get too hot too early and the brussels sprouts fail to form sprouts. Or, they form them and the sprouts bolt almost immediately---before the gardener can harvest them. So, if you didn't get a harvest from spring brussels sprouts, that is fairly normal. I have to get the transplants in the ground before the end of January in order to get any harvest at all, and then I only get it if May stays fairly cool and cloudy and rainy. If you didn't get a late fall/early winter harvest from brussels sprouts, I'm inclined to think they were in too much shade for that time of the year. Remember that when we plant edible crops for a fall and winter harvest, they are getting less intense light and fewer hours per day of it. I try to pick planting areas in winter time for brassica plantings that will shade them in the afternoons later in spring, but when I chose planting spots in the summer for brassicas, I have to choose a spot that will get as much sun as possible in, let's say, September through December. The easiest way to do that in summer is to plant them in full sun, use shade cloth to partially shade them in August, and then remove the shade cloth sometime in September (the timing depends on when the daily high temps drop back down out of the stratosphere). Broccoli plants will produce in more shade than most crops, so you probably could put them in a morning sun/afternoon shade situation in winter/spring and they'd be just fine. They might or might not produce in grown in dappled shade all day. Cabbage tolerates quite a lot of shade. Sometimes when brassicas underperform and don't look as good as you know they should, it can be a boron deficiency, especially in well-drained soils where nutrients leach out easily, or in areas with soil pH above 7 or so, or in areas where periodic extremely heavy rainfall (like so often happens in central OK in April through June) leaches nutrients out of the soil. Maybe it will help to remember it this way: with crops you plant from which you'll harvest the leaves to eat, there's a lot of shade tolerance. Many leafy crops produce well with only morning sun for maybe 3 hours a day or with dappled shade all day. With crops you plant from which you'll harvest the flowers (broccoli and brussels sprouts included) to eat, moderate shade is tolerated. With crops you plant from which you harvest the fruit or seeds, the more sun the merrier. (Well, up to a point. In our very hot intense summer weather, even tomatoes and peppers are happy with mid-day or late-day shade as long as they get at least 6 hours of full, direct sun per day.) The only way to figure out what grows best in each available planting area on your own property is to plant the same crop (preferably the same variety too) in various areas at the very same time in a given year and compare the harvest from the different areas. That's not something you learn in a year or two, but over the years you develop a feel for it that becomes instinctive in terms of what does best in each location. I didn't keep elaborate lists of what produced best in each location---I just kept it in my head. I drew out elaborate planting schemes for our first few years here, planning what would go in each square foot. Ha! As if I could stick to any plan..... Eventually, I felt like if I stopped planning ahead on paper so much and just planted stuff wherever my brain told me to plant it, my brain would lead me to the right spot....and it pretty much has. I know that sounds crazy, but it isn't. I walk into the garden some years with a flat of tomato plants in my head and say to myself "okay, where should you go this year" and my mind leads me to a spot. My unplanned gardens produce much better than the ones I drew out on graph paper and erased and redrew and erased and redrew. I think it is part of the zen of gardening.....just go with the flow and your unconscious mind will lead you in the right direction. Other years, though, I make a deliberate decision based on the weather I'm expecting. In a very rainy year, the tomatoes get the highest raised beds with the best drainage. In a very dry year, I plant them more closely together so they can shade the ground for one another and keep it more cool and moist, etc. Of course, those decisions only work if the weather we get is the weather I thought we'd get! Some of my bests planting layouts weren't planned at all. For example,one year I spaced okra plants really far apart because the varieties I was growing can get really wide. Then, when it was time to plant watermelons, I didn't have space in the watermelon bed for all the seedlings I had raised, so I stuck the extra seedlings in the okra bed to grow like a ground cover. It turned out that the shade from the okra plants helped keep the watermelons from sunburning, and the watermelon foliage was like a living mulch underneath the widely-spaced okra plants. It was perfect! It was genius! I love growing them this way....but was it some brilliant decision I made? Heck no. It was just a desperation move to salvage those excess melon seedlings so I could use them instead of composting them. My best planting decisions usually aren't things I planned--they are things that just happened. Dawn

Debra, I grew up in Texas, and guess I took the 'big sky' and gorgeous sunsets and sunrises for granted. When all my future in-laws came to Texas for the wedding, they kept talking about the sky and sunsets and I didn't get it because I'd always been a flatlander. Then I visited Pennsylvania one summer and noticed why our sky seemed big to them....with all the mountains and huge trees around their town, the only sky you see is the little piece that's right over your head, and the mountains and huge trees block the views of the sunrise and sunset too. I had no idea! I think the sunrises and sunsets here in Oklahoma are every bit as beautiful as the ones I grew up with in Texas, and to me they look better nowadays than the ones in the D-FW metro area because their smog (sad, but true) somewhat obscures theirs sometimes. Moni, I guess Oklahoma was quite a change from Germany? Lynn, I was waiting to see if you'd see this thread since I knew it was in your neck of the woods. So, if Foss still has an operating post office, at least there is some semblance of a town there. Carol, That is so true. I wonder if they know we're talking about them? Dawn

I've been good Mike, how are you? My plants are doing ok, i suppose. Marjorie, is still the only plumeria blooming. I expected to have something on Penang Peach by now. My brug leaves aren't liking the heat so much, but they are all still blooming. I've got a noid brug that is putting out another flush of about 20, in this heat! Yea, I didn't really see anything that wowed me at home depot, but i thought maybe someone else would. I don't have much overwintering space, so anything that i buy has to be special. I'm really tempted to try and find one of the JJ Thai Jades that Kenny had the picture of. I'm trying to resist the urge, just not very successfully.

Hi Kenny !! Beautiful flowers as always !! I think I could hear you gasp when you saw that first root on the CS. Lol! That is how I felt with my Metallica!!! ;-) Mike. Great blooms!! I will check on the branching on my tree when I get home. It doesn't seem to have any issues with the branching , I would have remembered it from last year. They all branch In two to three tips for me. The one that stayed a single tip when it bloomed? ...... Metallica!! Wouldn't you know it! arrrgghh Hi Jen!! I'm glad you had some fragrance in your DS bloom!! ;-). Heat and humidity do play a large factor in the scent and coloration of the blooms. There is no doubt about that!! Hope you are well!!! Thanks for the pics!!! Take care, Laura