My dad hasn't been able to log in and post for over a week, and he's getting pretty frustrated! He emailed gardenweb but they didn't respond yet. Anyways, he sent me this message because he wanted to thank everyone for all of the cards he received so far, which is a lot! ***THANK YOU FROM GARDENDAD_2K10*** Wow wow WOW - I am just overwhelmed with happiness with all of the cards and seeds I have been receiving! Everyone has been very generous and I am very grateful to you all for this. I have a whole pile of cards that I will be thanking people for, so stay with me. BUSTANI - Christmas tree card with a present inside. I opened the present and out came never-ending seeds. Wow wow WOW! I think they were all hand-drawn on and colored with Christmas sayings. I could see that a lot of work went into packaging these up and I am very grateful. She sent Cherry Bomb Pepper, Catnip and Catgrass (Kitty is very grateful), Sugar Snap Peas, Basil Mix, Blue Lake Bush Bean, Nature Sweet Tomato (LOVE TOMATOES!), and Habenero red & orange mix seeds. Thank you very much. You are more than generous and thoughtful. Merry Christmas! DEBBY_1 - Cat with a Santa hat on sticker was sealing the envelope. Very cute. I got a reindeer card and inside was Pepper long red cayenne and rutgers tomato seeds. Thank you very much! Peppers and tomatoes are my specialty and I can't wait to try these out. Happy Holidays! MOLLY_AND_ME - Candy sticker sealing envelope. I think the card was handmade - very professionally done. You have a great talent! I got seed paper that has Mammoth Sweet Basil embedded in it and some catnip for the kitty. How do you make seed paper? It looks great, I am interested in making some of my own sometime. Very creative person - a lot of time has obviously gone into this card and the seed presentation. Thank you and Merry Christmas! JULIE2112 - 3-D mitten card looks very cool. She sent me tons of seeds, how generous! I got onion 'white sweet spanish', pineapple tomato (wow sounds interesting!), amish paste (Have to look that one up), cauliflower 'snowball' (never grown that before but looking forward to it!), cauliflower 'self blanch', beefsteak tomato (one of my favorites), and Rutgers tomato seeds. Thank you very much - I love them all and will plant them with care. Happy holidays! DIRTDADDY - Very cool Elvis Card along with lots and lots of seeds. I got Parsley Extra Triple Curled, Fish Hot Pepper (his favorite, looks interesting!), Louisiana Red Cayenne, Thai Basil, Mavi Purple Hot Pepper, Tepin Pepper, Wenks Hot Pepper, Dr. Wyche's Tomato, and Lemon Drop Hot Chile Pepper seeds. Wow - I can't thank you enough. It must have taken forever to harvest those seeds - I am very grateful and can't wait to grow these. So many varieties that I have never tried before. Thanks so much and Merry Christmas! RUTHZ - Cool snowman card that says 'let it snow' with some great seeds inside. I got yellow eye bush bean, japone pepper, and...

Ive been fighting thrips on my blueberry bushes for 3 years now in South Houston. They reck shop on new growth late in the fall season and thats the growth that produces your flower buds for spring fruit. Ive been using spinosad for 3 years and try not to spray untill after harvest. They seem to peek in Aug and Sept in my area. Ive done alittle research on them and kaolin clay (surround) is suppost to be pretty effective on thrips plus it helps plants deal with heat which is a bonus in my area. I ordered some surround this spring and will start using it after harvest this year. Hopefully I wont have to spray spinosad anymore. I did notice after spraying spinosad it would knock them back for a couple weeks then seemed like they came back even stronger. It does kill beneficials as well. Dont believe every thing you read on those labels. The lady bugs and lace wings were no where to be found after spraying for months! Dont use it unless you have too. I believe it does more harm than good. A healthy population of lace wings and lady bugs I think can possibably keep there numbers in check but Im afraid they are here to stay. The only plants I dont see alot of damage on here from thrips are rabbiteye blueberries, okra and tomatoes. They do hit the rabbiteyes but not very much at all. Bellpepper, black berry, strawberry, Southern High Bush Blueberry all get attacked in a bad way.

My DD's have pretty unusual names. The eldest was going to be Amanda as I was in love with that name, it was unusual and I thought it so romantic. Then Bea Arthur was in a short lived TV show called Amanda and since I couldn't stand her, there was no way we could call our baby that name. Her father came home from work one day and asked what I thought of the name Tara (rhymes with Car) and I loved it, so that is what we named her. She's only run into a very few with the name pronounced the same, most are pronounced like the plantation in GWTW. Ironically, Amanda was a very popular name in the early 80's, and she went to school with 3 girls with that name! The next DD is named Dayna Elaine. I just LOVE her name but it's forever pronounced Diana or Dinah. How can you mess it up? My poor DS got a very common name, Jonathan, but I always loved the spelling Jon. He's got only one friend with the name Jon, but tons of Jared's, Justin's, Joel's and Jeremiah's!

@Just Started(Sydney) This vine seems to be easy to grow from seed, at least the germination rate is pretty high. I don't think you need to protect Madagascar Jasmine from Sydney's sunshine, the flowering one I was showing here gets all year round sun inc. summer's 40 degrees and doesn't complain a bit