Hi! You'll definitely want to check out www.territorialseed.com an OR company - they have a great print winter catalog with growing hints. Their web site has a special winter gardening section. Per their grow chart, you can still direct seed Arugula, spring cabbage, carrots, corn salad, spring peas/favas, lettuce, mustard greens, and radishes. And of course garlic! Having said that, the last couple of years I've been experimenting with fall/winter gardens. Arugula does great. Have not had luck with the overwintering crops planted in July/August like cabbage and broccoli - they get all chewed up by slugs. Fava beans and peas croaked from the cold. I am sure I am colder than you, though. So, other successes planted this late are: lettuces/greens. Some of these will grow slowly all winter under plastic cover, and burst into growth in early Feb. Some, like Arugula, Cracoviensis lettuce, Siberian Kale, will grow enough, if you plant enough, to harvest enough leaves for salad - or at least additives to store-bought. Beets, carrots planted earlier do great left in the ground fall/winter. Minus is going into the garden in the dark after work when it is raining to harvest root crops out of the mud LOL! I continue to experiment. This year I am seeing if I can get snow peas to bear under plastic this fall.

If you can keep it watered I would plant now. In the fall I seem to lose more than those planted now IF you can keep it watered.

Hi Cyndi, You already have the two best things picked out to use in your pots! At this time of the year, for ornamental things, pansies and flowering kale, a/k/a pretty cabbages, will give you the best bang for the buck! Both of those can take really cold temperatures, and, depending on what our weather does this year, could last and look good well into December. IâÂÂm assuming theyâÂÂd be getting some sun if you had basil and peppers there, but that might have changed with the seasons! TheyâÂÂd do ok for a while without sun, but should do better and last longer with sun. Other possibilities would be finding some blooming mums or fall asters and sticking them in the pots, but theyâÂÂll both freeze with our first âÂÂrealâ freeze, so IâÂÂm thinkinâ itâÂÂs probably not worth the investment in those this late this year since you donâÂÂt have anywhere to plant them in the ground for them to come back next year. With sun you could also try starting some lettuce or spinach in a couple pots. Not sure if youâÂÂd get anything edible or not. Would just depend on the weather. Anybody else have thoughts about trying lettuce or spinach in pots at this time of the year? If you decide to try that, you might go with some red lettuce for the ornamental value if it grows well! For some nice bright color and âÂÂdecoration,â pansies and kale are the âÂÂgo toâ items for fall! Skybird

Oh, Wilmingtonislander, you are so supportive! Thanks for your offer to put my name on a Passiflora! I don't know what kind I have (seeds came from someone on GW), but since the plants haven't died, just haven't grown, I'm not inclined to pull them up quite yet. Maybe they're just waiting til something changes, lol. Ever hear of the building maintenance man who was supposed to fix the heat/a/c system - he couldn't heat it up and then he couldn't cool it down! Sometimes I am mystified by gardening here, and think the plants are too - do they want sun, cool, rain, dry, sand, or what, ha. But, I'll get onto it eventually. I'm a student at Armstrong right now, as my assoc degree isn't getting me anywhere here. Going for the bachelors degree. I have the credentials, just not the college degree on paper that they want. Hoping that once I'm done, I will be able to get a job! I go full-time (scholarships and such), so not much time for personal stuff when I'm studying, as I have to keep my GPA up. Once I'm done with school and hopefully have a good job, then maybe I can do the garden club thing, lol. And, though I'm getting close in age to the 'blue hairs', as you so aptly refer to, I shall never get old! I am young at heart, and refuse to ever change. Perish the thought I should ever get caught up in the lifestyle of 'cultured' table and board games, and gossip. I'm a hands-on doer, and not one bit embarrassed by it. I'm already having to make major adaptations to do things due to arthritis and artificial joints. But nobody can tell me I have to have an 'old' attitude! I would definitely not fit in with the crowd that hires everything done, nor with the ones that do floral arranging. Not my cup of tea. Let me just go dig in the dirt, lol. For whoever asked, I'm on Wilmington Island myself. Love the islands too. Very quiet neighborhood, very nice people here. And, no, I didn't know there was a bamboo farm here. Do you know what the name of it is or can you tell me more? Sounds like a good adventure for me! Maybe take that one in before school starts (and it's coming fast!) Ok, I'm going through my seeds here to see what else I can get into today . I just spray-painted 3 baskets from Walmart that had badly neglected Mothers' Day plants in them, and they finally marked them down to half price, with the Mothers' Day tags still on them! Lordy, I just about cracked up. Is it any wonder the little plants weren't doing very well - the baskets had plastic liners, and the pots were sitting in baskets half full with water! But, the kalanchoes were none the worse for the wear. I am getting the soil dried out to what is more normal, cleaned up the baskets with bleach to kill the mold, and they are freshly spray painted. Sorry to drone on, gals, I'm just trying to learn and do things on a student's budget! Have a great rest of the weekend and thank you for being so nice and generous! jeribelle