I'm wanting to sow somniferum poppy seeds soon, so here are my thoughts. If your soil is prepared, now. Nature's way is to sow them as the seeds fall to the ground, June or July. Last year I had poppies that seeded themselves, appeared by fall, and were so much nicer and healthier than my winter-sown attempts, or the ones I direct- sowed in December. [I've been waiting on neighbors (one said she sowed hers, both poppies and larkspurs, last June) to give me larkspur seeds since July, but I still have no larkspur seeds. ] The problem is that I mulch and also sow annuals, such as huge zinnias where I want those spring bloomers, and then want to amend the soil when they are done blooming. But if I sow them after November they come up late, and if we have an early heat wave, they don't last very long. Have you tried enclosing seeds in clay balls? If you have any clay soil at all, mix it with some compost and seeds and moisten it, roll it into little balls and place them in your garden. Thin out when they sprout. The clay prevents them from blowing away or getting eaten all at once. And you don't have to transplant, just thin. (Plants hate to be transplanted!) Another idea: place chicken wire or something else over them to deter critters when you sow them. I look forward to other responses to your question, and the problems (and blessings) of our multi-planting seasons here in the Carolinas. Andrea

Oh wow...some old friends! I remember you guys from my kitchen reno days. rhome, weren't you also considering getting your fp oven painted? I never did it, did you? And man, a family of 10...that's a tough one to manage with no washer. My old washer died and I had to go a week and a half. Didn't think I'd survive, and I'm only a family of 6. I got my W/D from a local appliance store and luckily, they had them in stock. I shopped around but kept coming back to the FP. Since I have all FP appliances in my kitchen and love them, it wasn't a hard sell :) The appliance store was quite a bit higher than Gochnauer's online, so I asked if they would price match. They told me that they couldn't match G's price as it was below MSRP or whatever that's called. I was just ready to order from G's, even though I really wanted the WD immediately, when I got a call from the app. store. They came way down on the price and threw in a 10-year parts and labor warranty (FP was already offering a 10-year motor warranty but the store made it all parts and labor). Sold! Every now and then I do a load that doesn't seem to get as clean as in my old KA top loader (spots, grass stains still there). It's probably user error or I'll have to get used to soaking or spot treating, which I didn't have to do before. I also hate the HE detergent I bought (Kirkland perfume- and dye-free liquid). It's a pain in the rear--hate the little spigot, the stuff turns to thick waxy goo in the cup and builds up, and it's messy. Plus, my clothes don't smell good. I used perfume-free detergent before I got the new washer but it still seemed like my clothes had a good clean smell after laundering. Now, they don't smell like anything, which isn't really bad but I'm not used to it. It makes me wonder whether or not they're really clean. Anyway, if you have any suggestions on detergent, I'd love to hear them. I love using the washer, though, and how easy it is to keep clean with no dials to wipe around. I love not having the agitator, too! It took me some time to get used to the idea that I didn't have to select the load size--the washer figures that out all by itself! I was a little disappointed in the Fast Spin, since I expected it to cut the drying time way down, but my clothes seem to be about like they were after the spin cycle in my old washer (not almost dry like I expected). I think it's cool that you can remove the lids so easily, though I can't think of any real reason to do so :) The dryer is my favorite! How wonderful and clever to have a lint bucket that doesn't have to be cleaned after every load and doesn't impede the drying ability even when full. Love the top-load feature. Love the sensor. I think the only major appliance I own that isn't an FP is my mw. If FP starts marketing those, I imagine I'll have to get one.

I also won't eat any seafood other than wild caught. I was buying farm raised catfish the other day, from Mississippi, and the guy tried to talk me into buying tilapia. I refused. I know they are raised in filthy conditions and given lots of antibiotics because of it. That is the same for farm raised shrimp. I used to love to make crawfish etouffe. For a long time, I had six mud bottom ponds that I raised waterlilies in. Every year, I would pump them out, hand pick out all the crawfish...which ate the new waterlilies shoots, and replant the waterlilies. I made etouffe with the crawfish. If I got hungry for etouffe after my yearly clean up, I could buy crawfish tails already picked out...came in a little package from Louisiana. Then I noticed that the little packages were now coming from China. Even when I went to Louisiana for an iris convention and tried to find crawfish tails...they were all from China. Crawfish live in mud in the first place, but I am not going to eat anything that I know lives in mud in China. We went out to eat a couple weeks ago, and I had some crawfish etouffe. I could tell by the texture and the size, they were from China. We have a crawfish farm a couple of miles from here. Making etouffe from live crawfish is a lot of work, but I guess if I ever eat it again, I will have to do that. My husband is a commercial shrimper. I used to hear all this b.s. about not eating wild caught shrimp because shrimpers kill sea turtles. In 42 years of shrimping, he has never caught one turtle and if he did, he wouldn't kill it. So everyone was touting farm raised shrimp. I hope they know what they are eating. Now the price of fuel and low price of shrimp, due to all the imports, have forced him to get a job for the first time in his 61 years. He will keep the boat and shrimp a little on his days off...but mostly for us. I love shrimp, but I am not going to eat imported ones.

The soil gets better every year if you're amending it as you should....and the gardener gets better every year too. It all works together. : ) Here in OK the thing that throws the wrench into the works and gums it all up is the weather, because we never know when we are planting exactly what the weather is going to do for the next 6 or 8 months---it could be drought and no rain for 3 months or it could be flooding rains, 12" of rain in one day and 24" in one month. How in the heck can any gardener plan ahead and be prepared for all that? I stay out of feed stores during baby chick time or else I'll bring home chicks we do not need. They are too little, too cute, too fluffy and just too adorable to ignore. The last time we were in Atwood's they didn't have chicks in the stores yet, but I figured that for sanity's sake I need to stay out of Atwoods for the next couple of months, and TSC too. Rebecca, You probably are on track with your succession planting, but with snow peas/pole beans it might be a little tricky. I like to plant pole beans early---before the peas are done---because we get so hot here so early that my pole beans need to flower and set beans in May in case the heat is about to crank up too hot in June, which often happens here. If only the weather were perfectly predictable. My English iris, ornamental alliums, red hot poker and some daylilies (but not all) have been up for quite a while now---maybe a month? The daffodils were really late, and some of the daylilies aren't up yet, but I really think that is because of the lack of moisture. The recent rainfall should help with that. The autumn sages are leafing out, so I need to cut them back soon. Most of the reseeding herbs and flowers are no shows so far, but I saw the first couple of larkspur (sprouting in a pathway, naturally) a couple of days ago. I am thinking everything likely will just explode now that we had some rain. I hope Travis Meyer is right about Spring. I'm never going to be unhappy about an early Spring because I dislike Winter's cold so much. The incredibly, horrifically invasive pink evening primrose plants are popping up all over the front half-acre, and in the garden. I pull them out of the garden the minute I spot them. I am considering hitting the ones in the pasture with a herbicide. Yes I am! One plant gives you a million more and they invade everywhere. I got rid of them in the drought years of 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014...but they staged a remarkable comeback in 2015, 2016 and 2017's wetter weather. I cannot stand them. If you let them grow and reseed as they will, that's all you'll end up with in the end. I might keep them if they'd crowd out Johnson grass and bermuda grass---but they do not---they just happily coexist with it. Do you have any idea which parts of Fort Worth they're looking at? Maybe by direction, like North, South, East or West? The DFW metroplex has grown so very huge (7.23 million people) and Tarrant County's population so large (1.8 million I think and I am not sure how much of that is Fort Worth proper and how much is the suburbs that surround it) that it is hard to talk about parts of Fort Worth, as many people now buy homes in developments in the many suburbs that ring the city. Most people who move to the area try to choose a nice neighborhood that will be a decent commute to their work so that they don't spend an hour or two commuting each way each day. So, if you can tell me where their new place or places of employment are located, maybe I can point y'all in the direction of the great places nearby to live. And, I want them to be forewarned, it is a seller's market and homes are selling fast and at inflated rates, so if they want to buy, they need to pre-qualify to know their price limit and find a great real estate agent. Many of our friends who once lived in Fort Worth have fled to the outer, outer, outer suburbs as it all has become too urbanized for them in their former neighborhoods. Some have fled north almost to Denton, to north towards Denton and then west towards Decatur and the like. Others have fled very far south---farther south than Burleson and perhaps as far southeast as Mansfield. My niece tries to keep me up to date on what's what in terms of the neighborhoods and housing developments, and it shocks me when she mentions a neighborhood that was perfectly lovely and highly coveted when we left Fort Worth in 1999, and she tells me it has gone downhill and is now "ghetto". I guess nothing remains the way we remember it once was. If Saginaw and the area northwest of it are near their place of employment, there's tons and tons of new housing developments and new shopping centers going up there---for at least the last 10-15 years, and the growth is never-ending. It used to be Denton was considered a long drive from Fort Worth and too far to move to live, but now people tell me Denton isn't far enough away. I think much depends on whether they want to love in a highly developed neighborhood with lots of homes close together, etc., or if they want to move further out and had a half-acre or acre lot or even more. The weather was gorgeous here today. I trust it was gorgeous where y'all are as well. It was a little wet and muddy, but that won't last long. It actually was nice to see puddles for once. Of course, we had a fire. Remember how I told y'all that when rain falls in a bad fire year, it can make things worst? It sort of did that today. Some vehicle on I-35 had a tire that was coming apart and a piece of flaming hot tire landed in tall grass beside the road and set the grass and trees on fire. This occurred less than 12 hours after our rain stopped falling and it happened maybe a half-mile from our fire station. I was wondering if the ground was muddy enough for the brush fire trucks to get stuck, and suspected it probably was. The answer, apparently, was yes, and I learned that when one firefighter was yelling "stop, stop, back up, back up, you're gonna get stuck" to the fire truck behind him. Sitting at home listening to him holler made me grin---not because I wanted for anyone to get stuck, but because it is just so predictable. So, now that we have had rain, the fires will continue on because dry, dormant vegetation reminds dry and dormant, and the fires will be harder to fight off-road because of the mud. As my son would mutter sarcastically "Great, just great." One thing that was odd(in a good way) today was that it was so warm that the songbirds did not have to spend every minute of every day eating nonstop in order to stay fueled up and warm. I didn't have to refill the bird feeders until almost sunset. The stores near us still have all the typical cool-season transplants on the shelves, but also more herbs that I think of as needing slightly warmer weather...and quite a few tomato plants. This was the first week I saw tomato plants, and I won't remember all the different varieties I saw, but among them were Early Girl, Better Bush, Roma, Better Boy and maybe Beefmaster or Big Beef. Most were the smaller transplants that cost $3.48 or $3.58 in 3" peat pots, but the Early Girls were larger and cost $5.88 in what was probably either a 5" or 6" plastic (not peat) pot. They also had flats of pansies. Last week they only had violas. I bet next week they'll have flats of petunias. It follows a fairly predictable pattern here. We only went to Wal-Mart and didn't go across the road to see what was at HD because their plants come on the very same trucks from BP, I think, and they tend to get the same plants in at the same time. Exactly the same, but sometimes HD does have pepper plants in about two months too early---and earlier than Wal-Mart does. It was ridiculous to stand there and look at those big monster plants, all of which could eat my tiny tomato seedlings in one gulp. It doesn't make me wish I'd started mine earlier---because our soil is still far too cold for tomatoes. I believe I started mine at the right time for my area given my weather and soil temperatures (even with the recent warm-up). I might feel differently if the soil temperatures start hitting and staying in the 50s while my tomato plants are still 2 or 3" tall and wide. Gardening is an imperfect science. I hope people didn't see those tomato plants and automatically assume it is time to buy them, take them home and plant them because we have some freezing nights in our forecast around mid-week. Dawn