Not sure about mine, 'cause I think all gardeners try to start bulbs at one time or another. I do not start a lot of seedlings in the house...only did angel turmpets this year for the first time in about 8 years. My 'gardening mania' goes all year not just a short period of time. I do collect perennials and quite often a must have is any perennial (at a reasonable price)that I do not have, that I happen to see. So, my solution, is to start avoiding the nurseries if I feel I do not want to look after another plant. I, though, do not buy all the new varieties to put into pots like the horitscope says. I like nico, cannas, osteospernum, begonias and a few others. My fish pond doesn't have any mosquito larvae because the fish would eat them. So...interesting but not really applicable. Gemini 'One day in winter you declare that flowers are your passion. Soon your house is full of seed trays, grow lights and potted bulbs. Usually this gardening mania lasts until you get your seedlings into the ground. Just as often, it's abandoned once something else catches your attention. Enjoying new things is in your nature. Sticking with them isn't, so embrace the fact that you can be fickle. Look for plants that were unheard of a few years ago. Fill up pots with new varieties, and impress your friends with your floral fashion sense. Avoid major renovations until you've given yourself time to consider the projects. The last thing you need is a fish pond full of mosquito larvae that seemed like a good idea at the time.' Brenda

Thank you Pat, my garden is very small so is difficult to rotate the crops, instead I kind of rotate the soil. In the same space that I grew pole beans before I grow the peas after but in one gallon pots with new soil, either store bought or mixed by me, whatever I have available at that moment. This is my third pea crop, I succession plant them to last me for a longer season. I don't keep a garden calendar so I don't remember when they were planted. Today I harvested the second crop of delicious carrots, red outside and pink inside, my family asked me to only plant this kind.:) I still have more carrot harvest coming up in another bed. The carrots were shredded, some to be used in recipes for us and some for our pets, the rest goes in the freezer. Silvia

Hey Marie - what's the name of the granite farm in Lynnfield? Sounds pretty interesting. In June I posted some pics of our new front walkway and yard. I then spent almost every free minute this hot dry summer planting! Totally crazy but I'm too busy with work in the spring and fall so summer it was. A lot of folks here were really helpful in thinking about what to plant. We ended up with a lot of hostas (an old love), a lot of hydrangeas (a new love), a pagoda dogwood (some folks here suggested), some fragrant azaleas, ferns, daphnes, rhodies, and assorted other things. We have lots of shade, though a little more sun than in the backyard so I got a little more adventurous. My question posted here was about what to plant in the bed center stage in front of our house. We never really "decided" but it kind of evolved. We saw a small red weeping Japanese Maple that we had to have (Tamukeyama). Tagged one at Weston's for the fall, but then found one on sale at Stonegate in Lincoln and bought that. That went in the front of the bed to hopefully someday weep over the big rocks along the walkway. I also wanted a green one to weep over the side wall - bought a very small A J Green Cascade. Not sure how long it will take till they're big enough to really see! Finally we were out in the Berkshires and we saw an older (10 years?) PG hydrangea at one of our favorite nurseries that we totally fell in love with. We had no way of getting it back here, so they're holding it until it goes dormant. Hopefully we can then somehow get it into the back of the Subaru! I'll post when we get everything in, though by that time it might not look like much so may wait until the spring. Today I finally finished planting - moved a couple of things from the backyard. Hurray!!!! We've also been trying to get the thousands of acorns up before they're lost in leaves. I spent most of last spring pulling up baby oak trees. I had the landscaper rake a lot of the leaves into the beds, and he raked the acorns in too. This year I think we're doing it ourselves. What do you all do about acorns? We also tried to move our old kayaks into the back yard. Turned one over and out popped a very frightened chipmunk...

Hi, I have been thinking about this thread. I think it was the spring swap that got confusing because we had about 5 threads going at the same time about it and you had to check all of them to figure out what information was posted where. I also noticed that the NH swap tried switching to the Exchange and only had about 3 posts to that thread since opening it and people kept posting to the Discussions thread. None of the other swap threads have 90+ threads, so they can continue to use the Discussion threads to talk about who is bringing what and what time it is and how to get there etc. and leave the exchange thread just for wants and haves. I don't have the patience either to copy/paste all the relevant information to a new post. So since I started the thread, I will open a new thread, on the Discussion list this morning. It will simply say Eastern MA Fall Swap 2005 Continued. If people want to continue to post everything to this thread that is fine, if someone would prefer seperating out the wants/haves to an Exchange thread feel free to start a thread there. At least we will then have only two threads going basically. Ready, set, go.. :-)