York Rose, I'm afraid you might be right about the Chilli Thrips inevitably returning. Just wondering if anyone has any "inside scoop" on the issue. Jim, thanks for the well-wishes; as for Pandora's box, I guess we owe that one to international commerce and travel. Someone at our local Ag. extension told me they find out about multiple new invasive species of both insects and diseases pretty much every year. Generally, that's a very bad thing for the ecosystem. Every so often it's benign. For example, New Orleans is now full of many thousands of green parots that live in the local palm trees (palm trees also NOT native). No one knows for sure where they came from, but Many parts of Florida also have the same species (quaker parots). Luckily, it seems the quaker birds have an almost identical dietary need to the Carolina Parakeet that went extinct here a century or so ago. So the new birds fit right in. They're fun to watch, too. (Sorry, got off subject there) Mike

First off, welcome to the forum. Next, while it is difficult to see sideways, it appears to be not a cactus at all but a succulent in the Euphorbia family, possibly E. enopla. Next, yes, that is rot possibly from too much water or because the soil is not rapid draining or they were wet and got cold. There is some of the plant that might be able to be separated and repotted. Euphorbia can rot overnight so don't beat yourself up over it. If the green portion to the left (down) in your picture is all green, unpot, clean roots, cut away the nasty dark mushy green, then repot in dry gritty mix and allow to stay that way a few days and then water lightly, until you see new growth. This plant likes lots of light. When working with ANY Euphorbia, use protection because the white sap is very caustic. I'm sure if I've missed something others will chime in and help. Howard This post was edited by bikerdoc5968 on Thu, Feb 21, 13 at 16:22

I sometimes slowly bake a pile of chillis in the oven on a low heat for a couple of hours. Then just store them like other dried herbs, and crush them into whatever I am cooking when ever I need them. If you blacken them a little it gives them a bonus flavour. I think some mexican cooking requires 'blackened' chillis.

The main purpose of winter sowing seeds is to give those seeds needing stratification a required cold period required to break dormancy. Many seeds have this as a 'safety' device to prevent early germination. Seeds that require only warm moist conditions will germinate when its warm so those should not be sowed outdoors until later winter or early spring, especially if they are tender plants. You have seeds coming up that obviously do not require stratification and its possible you sowed them too early for southern zones. Unless you want to bring them indoors and then out again all winter, I'd suggest resowing any seeds that don't make it outdoors later on, time will tell if they make it outdoors or not. I direct sow hardy native annual and perennial seeds in fall. These are cold hardy plants that germinate naturally in fall, some germinate best in cool temperatures and won't germinate if its too warm. They spend winter as small green plants and are ready to take off in spring in nature. Tender plants are a different matter. These plants will not survive cold but you don't indicate what kinds you sowed.