Hi, I'll trade you some "Tom Thumb" (mini butterhead) lettuce and "Early Scarlet Globe" radish for some St. John's Wort and "Principe Borghese" tomatoes. Tell me if this works, thanks. -Nick

Hi Pat Growing veggies in Florida hot and humid weather is hard to do but not impossible, a lot of winter squash varieties do very well for me and eventually when older get mildews and everything else but I always manage to get a good harvest before it happens. Every year I grow a good and different varieties including the buttercup, right now I have stored for the season a number of winter squash to be used in cooking. When fall comes I will grow the smaller varieties. In the begginning of the season I use Serenade, but that is not a cure all. Sometimes I use Green Cure or Actinovate depending on what I have. Other people use a combination of milk and baking soda but like I said eventually when older all the squash get some kind of mildews in my experience. I just think of the finnish harvest and is all worth it to me.:) Hi Mary! Thank you for your beautiful card! And since you asked me about the taste of the Italian squash, all I have to say is that is tops! I especially liked it agrodolce Italian style, I do this with all my winter squash, cut in pieces, put kosher salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and sometimes a little bit of maple syrup. Because is so big, it is sold by the piece at the Italian market and I did sampled when I was there in risoottos and pastas. I am in Jamaica this week and I already finnish reading by the beach a book 100 Vegetables and Where They Came From, very, very interesting! and I was happy to know that I have sampled most of them and the ones that I did not, are on the list to try. The good thing about the book is that it also gives you simple recipes and combinations of food to try... Silvia

Just to give you another perspective, I'm just across the SC/GA border by about 30 miles or so. I usually always have greens growing from seed scattered in late August or early September. They last through the winter until spring. I had such a wet summer last year that I didn't get any in on time and didn't have any this year. Bummer. My neighbors had some and theirs are all bolting now. I've had snow peas in the ground a month and they're about 3 inches tall now. Took a couple weeks to germinate and pop out. I should have had them in on Valentine's Day or earlier. Weather... I should have beets in the ground now, but my tractor has been in the shop so I'm running late. They can go in mid March here with lettuce and onions and cabbage type transplants. Our average last frost date is early April sometime. I like to wait until after tax day to do any warmer season planting. Last year, I planted sweet corn and some okra in late April and it did well. I also planted more okra later and the earlier planted had larger plants which produced more pods per plant. If you space the seeds for okra by 2 or 3 feet, it gives the plants room to branch and not be a single stalk with pods on it. I had some plants with 5 or 6 branches and a main trunk of 2 or 3 inches diameter at the base. I'll be planting okra again as soon as I can after April 15. Probably drop bush beans, pole beans, squash, and cucumbers at that time as well. Never done pole beans, so looking forward to them. As for pests on okra, I have aphids after the tips where the blossoms were. Because I have aphids, I have ants. I also have to deal with fire ants in the ground, not so much on the plants. Aphids don't get on every single plant. And if they're there, I'll just toss that pod and move to the next one. Ants are more of a bother because I think they're after the blossom leftovers. Occasionally they'll eat into a pod and get inside, but not often. Again, I'll toss those pods and move on. I see stink bugs and leaf footed bugs, but I don't think they do much harm to okra. Okra is so productive. Freezes well. Pickles well. It's expensive at produce stands and farmer's markets, so I try to grow a lot of it and share cheap with folks at work. Sweetpotato slips will be here in mid May and I'll get them right in the ground. They're ready at the end of September. Might sneak one or two before then just to see how they're doing. They keep very well. Hope that wasn't too much for you all at one time. :-)

Petra, I agree with Mustangs as I don't know why you want this pulled or that you want to stop posting. I saw your smiley and I did one too at the end. You did state just Southern states (even after Mustangs and I posted) and believe me people cook this way all over the US and beyond and like it. You just prefer them a different way which is fine but there is nothing wrong with a person that wants to cook them to "mush" as you call it either. My MIL was born and raised in Pekin, IL and cooks them that way. She is far from the South. Some people have very warm memories of the days of eating that food that their grandmother cooked in the country. Maybe not for you but for others, yes. Those people are gone out of our lives and it's a way to "feel" like they are with us again. Plus, there is nothing wrong with Southern Cooking IMO. I don't cook like that everyday. I think a lot of people watch Paula on TV and think that we eat that way morning, noon and night and that is just not true.