You are all quite welcome, and thank you for coming to the swap. It was quite a large crowd, larger than the past 4 years, but the more the merrier. The swap keeps growing in size every year and that is so much fun. More people, new people, new garden friends to meet and always new and more variety of plants, seedlings, divisions to share. Blake, my hubby said the same thing, gardeners are always smiling, especially at a swap. So here are some questions for all of us. Why all the smiles yesterday? 1. Because all the plants, seedlings, divisions where finding new homes because we had no place for them in our gardens? 2. Because of all the new plants and seedlings we where bringing home to replace the ones we where giving away? 3. Because we where all with a group of people just like ourselves, crazy, plant loving, gardeners and no one at the swap thought we where crazy, but rather, we where al the sane ones? 4. Because we where with a group of people with common interests and could just let ourselves be ourselves and not think twice about it? 5. Because it is all of the above? Now I'll answer first, it's because of all of the above. Can't get any better than a bunch of like minded gardeners, all together in one location with tons and tons of plants and seedlings being offered for free and adding to the garden beds, talking with people about our love of gardening and having good food and drinks and perfect weather to boot. So I'll see all of you again, around the same time of year next year. And again for what will be the 5th year in a row, I'll be praying that I will have no more back problems and not facing another spine surgery after the swap. Thank you all for coming, glad everyone had such a good time, brought home "new babies" for the beds and as always, everyone is welcome to come, with or without plants, seedlings, divisions. Just come and take home our extras and give them good homes. NOW, all that wonderful home made food; I posted a thread to collect all those recipes. Everyone was saying things like I've got to get that recipe, so folks start posting the recipes for them. Michael, wintersowing is the best. Go onto the Winter sowing forum and read the FAQ's to start with. Have a question post on the forum. We are the friendliest and most welcoming forum on GW. No question is ignored, and we will welcome you with open arms and get you addicted real quick. And you can always e-mail me any time with questions. Kathy, they will grow up perfectly in their new home, on the other end of town. I will have to come and see them. It's not like we are that far away from each other. OK, time for me to start killing my back and get my beds planted. Count down time for me, before I'm not able to garden again till the fall. You all saw what is in my fenced in yard to get in the ground. POST THOSE RECIPES FOR ALL OF US. AGNES THOSE STUFFED PHYLLO...

Hi guys! Does cotton root rot effect milkweed? If not then bring on the Monrachs! Maybe I can grow milkweed in this MESS I have for soil. Yikes! Okiedawn I had never even heard of cotton root rot until your post today! Oh dread dread...it sure sounds like a possibility for me! I am here picturing my 4 year old apple tree dead with leaves still attached..and the apples still attached. The leaves turned reddish...I saw it happening and was panicked...watered it really good, worried and prayed but it was totally dead very quickly. From a thriving, bearing apple tree to dead in a very short time...I am guessing less than one month and maybe even only a couple of weeks. And I know when one of the peach trees died.....oh gosh I hate admitting this but when we went to dig it up there were almost no roots at all and I remember some weird "stuff" like strands of an old rotted rug or something hanging from them. I showed DH and we were both really puzzled and kept wondering how in the world pieces of an old rug got in there with the tree!!!!! We for sure know we didn't do it. Oh no! I didn't know that might be a clue to why it suddenly died. I still have trouble remembering all the specifics on all the other trees and plants. It could be the fig trees just didn't like it here? Neither of them lasted long but I keep thinking they must have made it longer than a year or I would have gone for REFUNDS.....lol. Gosh you get tired of paying so much money just to have it die. In talking about all this with DH he has helped me remember trees I had forgotten....we did have two apple trees....one died sooner than the other but even it lived until at least the third season and was growing and doing well. We have just lost a wisteria too. It is trying to come back from roots now but it SUDDENLY died and it had been here for 8 years as long as we have lived here. And over the past 3 years all of my English Ivy has slowly all died....but I only say slowly died as it all died suddenly which was planted in one area, then next year all of it died which was in another area...and last year got the last of it which was growing in yet another area. All these deaths of trees, plants and all ornamental bushes have been such a puzzle to us for SO LONG now. We would assume we didn't take care of it right but I know I have had the same kinds of trees and plants to thrive even with my occasional neglect at the place we used to live. I finally told DH it is nothing we are doing wrong we KNOW how to grow things...there is something terribly wrong with this ground...this soil. Still I just thought it was because of it being such mucky hard poor draing stuff. sigh...this is just SAD. But if this is really what is wrong then I am so thankful to find out so at least I can STOP buying plants and trees and just save the money for my bigger new 5th wheel which I will have when I sell this place and forget it all....lol lol. I wonder how I could find out for sure? Perhaps talk to someone at the Noble Foundation do you think? Oh my....and nothing can be done about this cotton root rot. How horrible! Anyone want to buy a nice home with lots of extras? Including fungus in the soil? lol lol Yikes! Many times I have thought that my trees must have lived long enough to have grown out of the nice clean fill dirt we put in when we plant them and thought it was when they hit the 'muckity muck crap' as I call it, then they die. And wondered why they were not strong enough to stand it by then? This is just great....NOT! Did I mention however that two houses from us the street ends at a large field which is farmed every year? also behind the houses right across the street are some of the same fields farmed yearly. They have raised wheat some years and hay some years. The info I found said alfalfa couldn't grow where this fungus was in the soil. I guess there are other types of hay though....hey I am not a farmer I have no idea....lol. Also crops or things which doesn't grow deep enough into the soil will perhaps make it? So Dawn what have you done about living where this stuff is? Tell me your experiences. Thank you so much for this info. I would never in a million years come up with this as I didn't even know anything about it. And have not really tried hard to find out what was actually wrong I just kept buying and planting and wasting money. But that will now STOP unless someone can tell me a way to keep it all from dying. Now I worry about my roses... will their roots eventually go down far enough to get into this tainted soil and I will lose them too? Oh God I do pray NOT! That is just painful to think of. Thank you so much for taking so much time and trouble to help me out. I appreciate it so much! Just sign me SAD HEART tonight.

As Larry would say, "I mudded in some onions today." We haven't had much rain so far this year, but we have had just enough light showers to keep things wet since the cold days passed. We had light rain this morning and have a 20 percent chance of more tonight. I tip-toed between the rain showers and planted all of my Candy onions in a raised bed. We are going to have several cloudy days in a row so it seemed like a good time to get them out. My husband was in Atwood's today and called to tell me they had Dixondale onions and asked if I wanted more. He read me the list and I think Candy was the only intermediate day variety they had and all the rest were short-day. Since I had ordered Candy with the group order, I told him I didn't need anymore of those and didn't want the others. Although I live in that lap-over area that Dixondale says will grow both short day and intermediate day types, I am at the very top of it, and feel I will probably be better off with intermediate day types. That is another reason why I like to order with the group order since the local stores don't seem to pay much attention to that.

Last night, I missed most of 60 Minutes and nearly all of Madame Secretary, due to tornado alerts for a remote part of my viewing area. The entire thing might have been an infomercial for the latest weather forecast/tracing technology. They have a fortune in new "toys" and just wanted to show them off. How many times does one need to SEE what is happening with a storm? Is not just telling people to take shelter enough? And do they actually have a TV in their "safe place" or will they just stay where it is dangerous, so they can hear and see yet more about the approaching storm? It was infuriating! I grew up in KS and spent many a spring night, under my father's big, heavy workbench in the SW corner of my basement. I take tornados very seriously. But come on - we have sirens for this in most places. One hears the sirens, one heads to the basement or other safe place. Having the weather person on TV talk about it and show it from 40 different angles for 45 minutes, does not make me "safer". Grrrr.....