I thought ground cherries and cape gooseberries were the same thing. I'm very curious because I have ground cherries. -Anne

How long do you leave the water off ? In the past I grew the onion sets, and they never died down. In the past 6 years or so I've grown my own from seed. That gets started in January and planted out in early May with mulch and row cover as we still get nights in the mid 20's. The past 2 years I have tried several varieties, searching for the best storage onion and hopefully finding one that can produce seed in our short climate. Last year I grew Copra as the standard, even though its hybrid. Then Bronze d'Amposta, yellow of Parma and Brown Spanish. Brown Spanish and yellow of Parma stored all winter and are now racing to see who makes seed. One kind is in a neighbors garden miles away. Can you suggest any great storage onions that have a shorter maturity ? The shortest I've seen are 90 - 100 days. Thanks for any ideas, Jean in Mt

Dawn, I don't know, but I think there are a lot of blooming bushes in that yard. They were still wrapped when I went to church this morning. I think they had to be ornamental since they were bushy and too small to be fruit trees. We haven't had as much warmth as you have had and my cannas have not come up yet. I have chamomile, daisy, and hollyhocks that are up, and had a couple of banana plants that had started to grow. The bananas have a little brown around them today. They are in a very protected area and may be getting a little heat from the walls of the house. The comfrey is in an open part of the garden, but it looks fine. I threw a box over the rosemary the last couple of nights because it looked like it had new growth. Lisa gave me a new echinacea plant last year and I was a little worried about it, but it was just barely above ground and appeared to be alright. I put a box over it tonight just in case we go even lower tonight. Our forecast for tonight is 29 again. My sage had started to get new leaves, and 2 types of oregano were up and all look OK. I have one little lavender plant that had a few new leaves, but already looked poor before the cold weather hit, so it may have trouble with the added cold. If so, it will not be my first fail with lavender. I am lavender challenged. The Mesonet shows that we have had 8 hours below freezing in the last week, but our low temp was 28. We have another low forecast for Thursday night, so it is still winter. I still have the 7 tomato plants that I bought for early planting and haven't been brave enough to put them in the ground yet. I just hope tomorrow is nice enough to work outside because I really need to pot-up my tomato plants that I grew from seed. They still fit on the light shelf, but those 7 that I bought don't fit there and are large enough to be planted. My grandson wanted to know how I got 7 plants out of a 6 pack. HaHa One of them just happened to have two in it and it separated easily. Old 'gonefishin' trick.

Well, these peppers and these squash plants were far from any walls. The conditions were identical for both. But certainly if you have some large thermal mass next to a plant, like a brick or concrete wall, the temperature won't drop as fast. With regard to leaf moistness, I'm betting that if you set aside a squash leaf and a pepper leaf to dry, the squash leaf would dry out first. Why? Because the surfaces are slightly more moist. Squash leaves are covered with these urticating hollow bristles that may conduct moisture. Pepper leaves are smooth and waxy. The leaves that are moister are ones that will be cooler. It is well understood that plants can get frost nipped if the temperature is above freezing but if there is wind. That's because moisture on the plant evaporating cools it below the air temperature. If you stand out in the wind when you're all wet, you'll know it.