I've just started winter sowing after reading this great forum and don't know if it's late or not, considering the bizarre weather we're having, but I've been bitten by the ws bug and had to give it a try! Today I put out: Alchemilla "Irish Silk" Aquilegia "Ruby Port", "Tower Lt. Blue" and "Tower White" Aurunus dioicus Bergenia "Winter-Flowering Hybrids" Catananche caerulea Eragrostis spectabilis (Purple Love Grass) Eryngium "White Glitter" Heurchera "Firefly" Hypericum androsaemum Moluccella Mondarda "Lambada" Panicum violaceum Papaver nudicaule "Flamenco" Patrinia Penstemon "Esprit" Pycnanthemum Rudbeckia triloba "Prairie Glow" Solidago "Golden Baby" Thalictrum aquilegifolium I would never have imagined I could do all of that and all the ones yet to be done if you all hadn't been so generous and encouraging with your posts. Keep up the good work!

There are columbines and columbines. If you sow a species, like Aquilegia canadensis, you will get Aquilegia canadensis babies. If you sow Aquilegia vulgaris there is no guarantee the offspring will be the same as the parents. I have pink, blue, purple, white, purple and white, double and single. They all come from self sown columbines and are highly variable - there is no way of knowing what will appear. Even if you sow a named cultivar like Nora Barlow or Magpie you may well end up with a percentage of variable seedlings. So if you take up a kind offer of seed be aware that you may not get exactly what you expect. A. vulgaris doesn't need cold stratification.

Here's what I have: pink flowering lamium purple flowering lamium yellow corydalis sweet woodruff yellow flowering ornamental strawberries (berries great for birds in fall/early winter, grow well in shade) pink/blue lungwort blue lupins 1 chestnut tree seedling to a loving home! (this year's seedling - 8 inches high) summer savory chocolate mint 1 plastic bird feeder, tower style, nothing fancy wood chip mulch (please bring a bag to trade or fill: I'll also take empty potting soil and other thick plastic or nylon feed bags) tomato seeds, asst varieties tomato seedlings, varied 2 HUGE black plastic pots the approx size of a 1/2 barrel sunflower seedlings purple lunaria seedlings Himalayan impatiens seedlings Egyptian onions 3 twig trellises about 2 1/2 foot tall Here's what I'd like to trade for: pink flowering ornamental strawberries berry bushes/canes: red and white currants, black and red raspberries, gooseberries, etc. dahlias and cannas (not fussy - just some pretty ones for my mom's garden) lemon verbena ferns snowdrops daylillies flagstones styrofoam grape boxes (they're shallow w a similar size lid and about 2 ft x 2 1/2 ft, avail from grocery stores, I use as seedling trays in greenhouse) shop lights (need a couple more in greenhouse) Susan

I'm so far behind I'll never catch up but I did read everything and I'm keeping my response minimal since it is time to start this week's new thread. Amy, Time off from a garden can be good. We all work too hard at this time of the year. Hazel, The best way to dig is with a special potato fork that has rounded edges on the prongs so they don't stab the potatoes, but I'm too cheap to spend money on a tool I'd only use a handful of days per year, so I used a transplanting spade with a rounded edge. Start further out than you have been and proceed slowly and with patience in order to avoid cutting into potatoes. Just use the cut ones first as sometimes they do not scar over and heal (though sometimes they do) and the ones that don't scar over will not store for long. A tomato knife is essential for someone who grows and processes as many as I do, and I did find one yesterday. I had to buy an entire cutlery set to get it, but it was an inexpensive set so I didn't mind. I wanted that tomato knife. I am going to go online one day and order a couple more. It is just I have tomatoes piling up everywhere now and need to be able to quickly cut them and use them and the tomato knife makes it easier. Melissa, Don't worry about being behind. Some years are just that way. We all have to work with whatever weather conditions we get. I am so sorry about your niece's injuries and will keep her in my thoughts and prayers. What a horrible way for her summer to start. I saw the story on the news and was horrified at the thought of those kids being in that bounce house when that happened. Jerry, That is an amazing corn story. Sometimes plants can be so resilient and I think often that many gardeners are too quick to write them off and either yank them out or plow them under instead of letting them recover on their own. Nancy, In your case, because of all the rain you have received, it is a good thing that the tomatoes are not closer to harvest. If they were, the excess moisture likely would ruin the flavor. Flavor is best if they are kept pretty dry as they approach harvest. So, for me, as much as I lament the lack of rainfall down here, it isn't really a bad thing for the tomatoes as it means their flavor compounds won't be watered down and they won't be suffering from cracking and splitting either. The first time I grew Mexican sunflowers, I wasn't prepared for how big they'd get. I space them much better nowadays so they don't crowd out everything else. Our dear, sweet Mary normally grows a ton of veggies and cans all summer long, both of which are a huge amount of work, of course. She is trying to take off this season in order to recover from what I'd describe as a major cardiac event so hasn't been posting here much. I was so happy to hear from her the other day and to know she is going to have a few plants. I think plants can be great therapy as someone recovers from a medical issue, as long as you have the self-discipline not to overwork yourself while tending those plants. Mary, if you read this, I keep you in my thoughts and prayers and hope you make a full recovery so that next summer you can be back to your usual growing and canning. Amy, It is odd that cabbage refuses to cooperate with you. It is about the easiest thing I grow. I just plant them and forget about them, which is easy to do if you grow your brassicas under netting to exclude the cabbage worms and such, which I do. When they're ready, I harvest. I do plant cabbages with short DTMS in the 60s-low 70s so that they finish up fairly early here. That's more because I want to put a sucession crop in their place before the weather gets too hot than anything else. When I've grown varieties with longer DTMs, they've done fine too and I've almost never had a head of cabbage try to bolt. Rebecca, I'd just cut off all the damaged leaves and let the Brandy Boy put out new growth. It likely would be fine. Nancy, Cucumbers planted late will do fine. I planted my pickling cukes late on purpose (just last week I think, or at the end of the week before), except for 2 early plants I planted in late March, so that I could spread out the canning load. The cucumber plants from the seeds I just sowed will not be producing a harvest until I'm through canning tomatoes, which was my goal. Having too many things that need to be canned all at once can be a real problem, so I try to control the canning workload by using planting dates to spread out the harvest. You even can get a good cucumber harvest from cucumbers planted in July down here, and I expect it is the same up there. My honest opinion is that if you want more sun, get your sweet husband to cut down that tree now. As time goes on, the shade situation just worsens. I speak from experience. Now that you two both are enjoying gardening so much, it will be important to maintain sunny areas for your veggies, fruits and sun-loving flowers. There is a place in each landscape for both sun and shade, and too much shade (though shade is highly desirable in our hot summers) is not a good thing. Okay, it is Monday moring and I'm headed off to start this workweek's new weekly garden talk thread. Dawn