Happy New Year to all my gardening friends. PEACE on earth, including Gardenweb. May the New Year bring love, happiness, forgiveness, joy, Wisdom, and Beauty beyond what you hope for in your gardens. Here's to New Beginnings. Cheryl

Hi all! I'm new to the forums but I have an idea why this one doesn't get much response. It's not listed in any of the categories, it's only listed sort of alphabetically in the s's as The Single Life, it took me several visits to find it and I still have trouble remembering where it is on the list to click so I can lurk! Maybe someone should suggest to Spike? that it be made more visible, I know that there are a lot of singles on the forums. Just thought I'd pop in and say something and maybe someone else has had the same experience. My New Year's Resolution is to be proud of being single and not be so quiet. Happy New Year! Charlotte

Thank you. As I recall we had a record high of 80 last Sunday (1 January). Tonight and tomorrow night (6 and 7 /January) will get down to 24 and 26, then back up into the 60/70s after that. The ground is always workable. The lows are very short in duration. The day temps normally warm everything back up. This is a great time to garden. Weeds grow slow, and no mosquitoes. It is a gardeners paradise from oct to march. April, May and June starts to warm up. July, August and Sept are too hot and too many bugs. In the recent past, I tried a second tomato season in late fall. Looking back, it makes no sense to try to grow in July, Aug, Sept when it is so effortless now. Of course, I can't grow tomatoes now. I am thinking I will just grow extra tomatoes in the normal season and freeze the extra. The ones I froze from last summer did real good in Sauces. I don't have a lot of time to can/make sauce to freeze, but I can always make time to quarter tomatoes and throw them in a bag in the freezer. The sweet white turnips, hakerie (name is close to that), are one of the lesser cold hardy varieties. They are very tastee, especially roasted with the carrots. I have a small patch of them and few remain. I will cover them. Everything else is very hardy and remains uncovered: Kale,broccoli, collards,onions, carrots and Lettuce. I expect some Lettuce losses, as there are many varieties. I expect half to survive just fine. I watered real good yesterday getting ready for the cold snap.

Wow, your little stars is a beast! I hope you get lots of flowers. My bud watch is on, too! I've had these two orchids for 3-4 years ... it's taken me that long to figure out how to make them happy enough to bloom! Sedirea japonica has finally got a spike with 9 buds and counting, and the Masdevallia discoidea has one tiny little half-inch bud that's starting to get really purple for me! I'm not expecting more than the one... I nearly killed it on a 95 degree day last year. It's in much happier conditions now, grew a whole slew of new roots and leaves this summer, and has decided to grace me with one flower. I'll take it!