Thank you, Carol and Susan for your offers of plants and seeds, but I'm going to stick with what I have this year. It just isn't going to be a very good summer for growing stuff and I figure I just might as well accept that and go on. You are wonderfully kind and I appreciate you so much! Dawn, I'm sorry to hear that your fruit is on the ground, too. I still have peaches and apples but I don't know for how long. The storms stayed south of us yesterday and we didn't even get rain, but did get more wind. NOAA has changed its forecast for my area, we may not get rain at all out of this, although the sky looks like it might rain any minute. I do feel so sad for all those who have lost so much. Makes me feel a little selfish for complaining about just losing plants and fruit. Yes I am familiar with Neodesha. They and Coffeyville were hit so hard last year. It sounds to me like the college jumped the gun on getting student housing cleaned out. The house next door to us was reposessed and some people were hired to clean it out. It was a MESS! They told me they stored the good stuff away until they had enough and then they would have an auction. So tell the kids to watch the auctions, maybe they can get some of their stuff back. I was born in Iola, KS and my dad was a truck driver for awhile. Neodesha was on his route. A few years ago I worked in an ophthalmology office in Bartlesville and we had a pediatric specialist that would come from Tulsa once a week. I would do his dictation and he would pronounce Neodesha as Neo DEE cha. The first time he did it I went "WHA.....????", then when I realized what he was trying to say I nearly rolled in the floor. Generators can be really dangerous things, especially since people tend to try to run them somewhere in the house. That's where the carbon monoxide comes in. We have one but we keep it on the back porch. The last time we had a power outage here, it lasted for about 24 hours and it was bitterly cold outside. We didn't have our generator then and we got by OK by wearing our coats and bundling up when we went to bed that night. But mostly I worried about our water pipes freezing. Now with the price of gas the way it is, it's going to be expensive to run a generator. I hope everyone stays safe, all of you please be careful and keep track of the forecasts for your area.

My plumaria expert says that blossom booster or anything with such a high middle number is useless. In fact some of the threads by Al will agree. I use "Dynamite" 13 13 13...Even numbers right across the board. In fact most plants don't like such a high middle number, because your throwing the abilty off for the whole plant to be healthy, even the colors of the leaves by forcing flowers on your plants when you don't have to. How come plumies flower from the ground outdoors withou someone throwing so much middle number on them? In the ground, they are getting an even amount of nutriets to sustain over look, vigour, and health. I will send you an excert of why the middle number is useless. The "dynamite" has worked wonders for me. It is slow release along with micro nutrients and a well balanced fert. Just some excerts... "Whatever nutrients are available in excess, will be absorbed by the plant to a certain degree, and in some cases, this may lead to toxicity or even symptoms of shortages of other nutrients as toxicity levels block a plant's ability to take up other nutrients. Too much nitrogen will lead to excessive foliage production and less flowering. Too much potassium or phosphorus will not lead to ill effect, but will show up as a deficiency of other nutrients as it blocks uptake". "What about the "Bloom Booster" fertilizers you might ask? To induce more prolific flowering, a reduced N supply will have more and better effect than the high P bloom formulas. When N is reduced, it slows vegetative growth without reducing photosynthesis. Since vegetative growth is limited by a lack of N, and the photosynthetic machinery continues to turn out food, it leaves an expendable surplus for the plant to spend on flowers and fruit". "The fact that different species of plants grow in different types of soil where they are naturally found, does not mean that one needs more of a certain nutrient than the other. It just means that the plants have developed strategies to adapt to certain conditions, like excesses and deficiencies of particular nutrients.." "Most greenhouse operations will follow pretty closely to a 2-1-2 ratio of the primary macro-nutrients on most greenhouse crops with minor deviations based on tissue analysis and the effect of the growing medium. Most post-greenhouse fertilization will follow fairly closely to a 3-1-2 ratio, with some deviation. Again, this very closely mimics the range of the primary macros found in plant tissues". Read the thread......type in search.... "Fertilizer Program - Containerized Plants (Long Post) very imformative article". I never use blosson booster, and all my plants flower Profusely.... Hope this helps and greens up the leaves along with giving you nice flowers next time around..:-) Mike

Well I've decided to grow my Holy Grail this year. THE WHITE MANZANO. http://s403.beta.photobucket.com/user/smoemaster_2007/media/IM004342.jpg.html?sort=3&o=589 http://s403.beta.photobucket.com/user/smoemaster_2007/media/IM004346.jpg.html?sort=3&o=591 Not light yellow,White. I had 1 plant that put out pure white pods but I had a mite problem for a while and tried to save the plant by giving it to some one who I thought would save seeds and take care of the plant. They didn't save seeds from the pods or care for the plant. I have 1 plant from the white podded pods seeds growing and have several other plants growing from Yellow/White pods seeds I saved. The pic of the pod are next to a couple very light yellow pods. The plant from the middle pod put out T shirt whit pods. So IF the last plant I have from the white Manzano grows true I'll be spending the next seasons re growing seeds to see if the albino is stable. Any time I saw a White Rocoto or Manzano it was a very light yellow,not pure white. The pic looks yellower than the pods were in real life. I'm on a mission from the pepper gods. I have 18 sprouts from 1 white and 17+ yellow white pods seeds going now. I'm sick and tired of the super hot crap. Totally unstable crap sold as a new strain or variety... Most are 1 trick ponies. I like my 7 pots but am on a quest for bigger and better things. Tired of unstable stuff being called new strains or varieties. $ has taken over these days. Really sad in my opinion. Ya I'm into trying to grow every pepper known to man but these unstable peppers aren't on my list. This post was edited by smokemaster_2007 on Sat, Feb 16, 13 at 23:52

My dad grew double grandiflora petunias from pelletized seeds. They were magnificentmagnificent! There was no let up in flower production all the way to frost. Individual plants got to be about a foot high and 18" wide by summers end. Their very compact, dense growth habit was maintained all summer long. No pinching, trimming, dead heading was ever needed. They resembled carnations at first glance. Giving so much for so little effort makes me wonder how I didn't follow his path, and got mixed up with roses....winter die back, rose midge fly, spider mites, aphids, rose slug, black spot, powdery mildew, downy mildew, Rose Rosette Disease, Mosaic Disease, rabbits, squirrels, THORNS!....but the blooms are pricelesspricelesspricepricelesspricelessriceless. Moses