Well- I do believe the out of town seed swap by mail- has been accomplished without a hitch- thanks to the many suggestions and voulenteers to help- and the special folks who buddied up to hand pick and select precious seeds for those trusting enough to participate on this maiden voyage- My thanks to Mary Jo- SandiBluffs buddie, Mary- Dave's sender's buddie, Suzy- Marie's buddie (Rick helped too...), Pauline- Dott's Buddie, Rick- Jan AND Kate's buddie, Cheri too had a sender she buddied up for. I do believe with all the care involved with hand selecting the receivers will have a very pleasant surprise coming to them!! I do think that this is an easily do-able, much appreciated addition to the Winter Blues Seed Swap- I think that whom-ever hosts next years seed swap could easily be the person who the envelopes are sent to- and the one who could easily enlist help to buddie up with someone- I will gladly forward the letter I sent out to those who sent seeds in- (it lists instructions that help make the buddies job easier) to the host of the next MN WBSS, or- I can do again next year what I did this year. I feel it is too valuable of a service to not continue. I am sure the buddies will be sending out soon- if they havn't already! It is a good idea to post here or send an e-mail when you send the envelope on- and it is polite to respond in turn when you receive the envelope- That way, neither is left wondering about the package. Thank you senders- for the wonderful seeds you sent- Thank you Buddies for picking out the very best for your buddies! And Thank you Cheri for having us all- once again for the MN GW SS! Thanks to all who participated! Julie

Boomer Sooner, Believe me I do understand. I have wanted to plant for weeks, but knew I shouldn't, and when those frosty mornings hit last week after our average last frost date, I was relieved that I didn't have plants in the ground to cover up. Here's what I do to feed my "tomato planting fever". In February, as soon as the stores have them (except for this year, which I'll explain in a second), I buy several tomato plants in 5" peat pots. They are usually about 8-10" tall, have main stems as big around as my little finger, and either already have blooms on them or are about to bloom any day. I buy 4 or 5 of them, and pot them up into 2-gallon or 3-gallon pots. Then, I carry them outside into the sun on warm days, and into the well-insulated but undeated garage/barn on cold nights. If the forecast low is going lower than maybe 25 degrees, I carry them into the house. Does it get old? Sometimes it does, but on the other hand, it means we'll be harvesting the first tomatoes in April or earliest May. Just knowing that helps me be patient about putting my home-grown seedlings into the ground. This year, I was busy and didn't buy them the first week they were in the stores. Then, the second week, we had 9.25" of snow here, and parts of north central Texas south of us had up to 14" of snow. Guess what the brilliant minds at all the stores did? They left those nice, healthy, lush tomato plants outside where they all froze. So then I couldn't buy them for another week or so because all the stores had lost their entire inventory. I finally found some that hadn't frozen around the third week of February. They were at a Lowe's in Southlake, TX. Those six plants have about 14 or 15 tomatoes (total on all the plants combined, not that many on each plant) on them right now and we're expecting the first ripe one in 2 or 3 weeks. I can hardly wait. Having those few plants to fuss over, and knowing that we'll have ripe tomatoes soon, helps me slow down and wait for the right weather instead of being in a rush to plant. I still have about 6 jars of canned tomato sauce and about the same amount of canned salsa, several quarts of frozen tomatoes in the freezer that I can use for cooking, and 3 gallon-sized zip-lock freezer bags full of dehydrated bite-sized tomatoes. The dehydrated ones, when rehydrated, still have wonderful flavor but of course they don't have the same texture as fresh tomatoes. I'm dying to have that first ripe tomato! Paula, If this wind doesn't stop blowing, I don't know when I'll feel like the plants "can" go into the ground, but certainly by this weekend. The winds on Tuesday are supposed to gust up to around 40 mph---and that is getting so old. I'm sort of dreading putting all of them into the ground, because then I'll still have about 200 left....and I'll start worrying about whether or not I can find good homes for all of them. lol Dawn

Thanks Dawn. I thought I had asked that question before but couldn't find it. Now the worse part of the story is that I think I have 43 kinds of tomato seed and I don't have any of those five. LOL I think I will just look for one of them. I have Thessaloniki which is listed as a 60-80 day tomato, but it didn't get a good report from Jay. I think I may have a couple more that are supposed to be in the 65 day range. Most people here shoot for a 4th of July date, I think. I was much earlier that that one year, but most years that seems to be about right. I am hoping to try to hit a real early date with 2 or 3 plants. I have some plans of how I plan to accomplish that. LOL It has been very cool here several nights and I have some brown leaves on some okra and one tomato plant that happened over night a few nights ago. They are on the end of the row that gets more wind straight across them, but I am not sure that it is cold damage because the other plants next to them are fine. I still have a lot of peppers on my vines but the cooler weather seems to have slowed them down some. The green beans are still going strong. In the last week, the cole crops have started to stand up better and growing faster, so this seems to be just the kind of weather they really like. My cowpeas didn't make at all and I doubt that they will have time since the Tulsa station is saying that they could get a frost as early as the weekend and I'm a long way north of them. Sometimes I get a couple extra weeks because of the lake, but this year I am sure the lake has been cooling down slowly as the temps have gone lower over a longer period of time. They made pretty vines and have bloomed the last couple of weeks but I haven't seen any pods. I plan to check them carefully tomorrow and see if there is anything at all. I just got them in much too late because I assumed we would still have a lot of hot weather in August and September. Some of the winter squash that I planted late is probably going to be OK. I have not pulled any because last time I checked, I could still press my finger nail into it but they have colored up good. I think I will get a couple of acorn type and quiet a few butternut. The spaghetti squash was what I was most interested in getting but I doubt that it will make it. It is growing really fast now but will not reach it's 100 days until the end of October and I think we will have a freeze before that, for sure. Oh well, I got the seed in a trade and it was an experiment anyway since I knew there was a chance that it wouldn't have time to mature from my late planting. I drove back over to Baker Creek and took my friend and they had a sale on their 2009 seeds but they are very picked over by this time of year. They are beginning to put out several 2010 seeds, and they told me the catalog would be sent out in December. I have never had their catalog so I am looking forward to getting one this year. I'm not sure why because I have already bought all of my seeds for the next year.....and then some, but it will be fun to look at. Since I have about 100 packs of their seed, maybe I can use the catalog as a planting guide. LOL My DH is having a problem with a knee and he didn't go with us but Anna and I had a good time anyway and enjoyed the seed store. She bought Jonathon apples, green beans, and sweet potatoes from the vendors, and about 30 packs of seed. I looked for silkies but they didn't have any today. I probably will not go back until the May festival. That is a big 2 day thing and should be great, but since they had 6,000 people this year and the event gets bigger every year, I am sure you would need a motel reservation many months earlier. We left home at 7 today, did all our shopping and had lunch at their little place, and were home at 3 o'clock. I had already bought so many seed, but I was there....and the price was right....etc, etc, etc. I bought several things that I probably would not have selected otherwise. I notice that I got home with a lot of pink tomatoes and several new squash, and of course a lot of other things I didn't need. I did buy Ilinni Star tomato and Collective Farm Woman melon which I have wanted to try, and a few new squash.

Beth, you probably have Passiflora incarnata which is a native vine in Oklahoma (as well as many other states). There is probably some info on the Internet about sowing the seeds, but I would winter sow it - does need some stratification in order to germinate, but some say that a GA3 treatment is necessary. You can buy it at gardening centers. Some say it is difficult to grow from seed because it contains a natural growth inhibitor, and others say it is easy. When someone tells me it is difficult, then I gotta take up the challenge. I just ordered seeds so we can compare notes on our progess! I also ordered P. ceurulea, common name of Blue Crown passion flower, and will try them, too. Years ago, I bought a vine labeled "Purple Flowering Passion Vine" at Warren's (now defunct) in Midwest City. I later ID'd it 'Lavendar Lady'. It is gorgeous. Comes up late spring, but grows very fast, and produces beautiful, fragrant, purple flowers until frost. It bloomed this year until late November. Anyway, one of the parents is P. incarnata. Cuttings are extremely difficult to root, so propagation from seed is virtually the only way to reproduce this vine unless you buy one off the internet, or from a local nursery (good luck!). Prepare to be inundated by Gulf Fritillary butterflies when growing this vine, because it is their host plant. They will eat it to pieces, but they will not kill it. The ultimate reward is beautiful long winged orange butterflies with silver spots on the underwings that glisten in the sunlight. They will stay in your garden daily. Variegated Fritillaries also use this vine as a host, but are not nearly as prolific as the Gulf Frit. Try soaking your seeds a couple of days before planting them. I have also heard that this helps. Susan Here is a link that might be useful: Growing Passion Flower From Seed