Well, Peppermint Pop and Milwaukee's Calatrava do sound interesting. I do object to their recommending the Brownell climber "Show Garden" for zone 4, but all in all they are doing a much better job than most with their hardier rose selections, aren't they? And that Bella Anna hydrangea on the cover really has me tempted although I'm a bit skeptical of a 4" pot for $15 + shipping! I just wish some local nursery here would carry Bailey's plants. I'll have to make my rounds again early this spring and put in requests - one of these years one of them may listen to me!

People here are receiving seeds and starting them already, and i've just made an order! Mostly, i've waited because i'd be too tempted to start things earlier if i got them earlier, and i wanted to start things like petunias and impatiens a little later than last year. Anyway, here is what i've ordered from Vesey's: Pepper Orange Sun Swiss Chard Orange Fantasia Cosmos Sonata Mix Osteospermum Passion Mix Petunias O Canada Mix Petunias Ramblin' Red Petunias Tidal Silver Wave Petunias Tidal Wave Hot Pink Campanula Dwarf Pink Snow Pansies Mix Pansy Rhapsody Mix Impatiens Tempo Mix Impatiens Seaside Mix Hemerocallis 'Startle' Lilium 'Centrefold' (3 more bulbs - i can't wait for the one i already have to multiply!) Astrantia collection (thank you, enablers!) Lilium 'Starfighter' Dahlia 'Freak of Nature' Dahlia Pinwheel Mix That's only Veseys! Eep! The old Visa was vibrating! :>

Pam, I don't think I've grown many of Twilley's varieties, but I intend to start trying some of them every year. For 2013, I'm thinking of trying a couple of their broccoli varieties (Castle Dome and Coronado Crown) that have received very good reviews from Farmerdill on the Cornell website. I figure if they do well for him in Georgia, they ought to grow well here as well. I might try a couple of the lettuce varieties they carry too. I'm always on the hunt for lettuce varieties that can ignore the early 90-degree-plus days that hit us randomly in March and April some years. I hate it when early hot days cause the lettuce to bolt earlier than it should. That happened both in 2011 and 2012 because we were hitting the 90s before Easter, which is just ridiculous. One reason I've posted only my 2013 tomato grow list and not the grow list of all other veggies is that I'm still trying to decide which Twilley varieties I'll try this year. As for the seed addiction.....Tim is just happy it is not a shoe, purse or diamond addiction. Seeds are a lot more affordable and don't require much storage space in the closet. Jay, The catalogs and the updated websites seem a little slow this year. I did go to Sample Seed Shop's website last week and order a bunch of seeds from Remy that "Santa Tim" is giving me for Christmas. I also have looked at Peaceful Valley Farm Supply's website, which has updated for 2013. However, a few weeks ago I went to their website and ordered 2012 seed that was on sale for, I think, 50% off, so I don't really need any of their new 2013 seeds. Burpee has updated their website and sends e-mails constantly, but they are pricing themselves right out of my price range. I don't care how promising anything in their catalog sounds--I am not going to pay $5.95 or $6.95 per packet to try a variety that is unproven to me. I try to order Brandy Boy and 4th of July every 3 or 4 years and then not order again until those two are used up. Then, if there is something at Burpee I want to try, I order it when I'm ordering those two tomato varieties. Dixondale did add two new short-day varieties that I'll try this year, but I noticed they didn't add any intermediate or long day types. Of course, they really don't add new ones at a very fast rate. SESE's latest newsletter said they're getting ready to ship the catalog in December. Well, I sure hope it is in early December. I usually get impatient and order online before the catalog gets here which also means the website isn't completely updated yet, and then there's always something in the catalog I wish I'd ordered. The Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog is a special favorite of mine too, as is Baker Creek. I can spend the whole winter looking through the catalogs from Johnny's, SESE and Baker Creek until I practically have them memorized. Forget coffee table books, I love these three coffee table catalogs. I try really hard to get all my seeds ordered and received before the end of the year. There's nothing worse than ordering in January with the expectation the seeds will arrive in a couple of weeks, and then having them back-ordered and not getting them until March or even later. If this drought hangs on, I will push hard to plant everything I can as early as I can in the hope that I can get a good harvest before the heat sets in, and without spending a fortune watering the garden. Last year, the early planting strategy worked incredibly well because we warmed up early, but I didn't plant everything early--only about half. I planted Waltham Butternut transplants from Wal-Mart in March, and was harvesting winter squash by the end of June. That's never happened before (and might never happen again). This year, I'm aiming to improve my harvest of all crops by planting everything as early as is humanly possible. You know, I'd plant the cool-season stuff tomorrow if I thought I could get away with it. : ) Actually, all of the fall cool-season crops are producing very well still which makes it hard for me to think about planting more in mid-winter, but we usually are hitting the teens intermittently for overnight lows by early to mid-December, so the cool-season crops won't keep going indefinitely. Well, except for the kale and chard. I don't know how cold it has to get to really hurt kale or Swiss chard because even when they have freeze damage, they bounce right back. I'm not sure I've had anything hurt them until we got down into the single digit temperatures, and even that only froze them to the ground and then they instantly regrew. I'm ready to sow seeds now, but it is too early. (Way too early!) Every day now I say to myself that I ought to dust off the light shelf, plug it all in and check the bulbs and replace any that seem weak, sterilize a couple of flats and start some seeds, but then I talk myself out of it. This week I noticed some very tiny volunteer tomato plants are growing in the cattle trough with the lettuce. I grew dwarf and cascading tomato varieties in that trough until October when I replaced them with lettuce, kale and chard. I suppose the leaves of the taller greens have protected the baby tomato plants from the frost and freezing temperatures. I think today I might dig up a few of those volunteers, pot them up and put them in the greenhouse if for no other reason than to see how long they last in there before they freeze. On most nights so far this fall the greenhouse is staying consistently 2 to 5 degrees warmer than the outside air. It will stay 5 degrees warmer as opposed to 2 degrees warmer if I had the doors and vents closed by 3 p.m. so the heat can buildup before sunset. If I don't close the vents and doors until just before sunset, it only stays a couple of degrees warmer than the outside air. I also think part of the reason for this is that the days are still pretty warm and the ground isn't real cold yet. I expect that sometime in December I'll see that the greenhouse is going exactly as low as the outside temperature at night. Dawn

honestly I think glastar AND inland makes a great grinder...I have two inlands (both have the smaller grinding table you put on top) I use my impulse (by inland) the most. I do have to say that when my impulse broke (the switch) I emailed them, they were so nice..they immediately sent out a replacement part at no charge. They had the best customer service department I have ever seen!! I had ordered the bigger work surface grinder before I knew I could fix the other one. That is why I have two. I have used the glastar in my stained glass class I took and loved it, I would be hard pressed to have to choose between the two brands!