Welcome to Garden Web. I thought you might like to know there is no email link on your member page, thus no way to email you. To set up your email, just go to the bottom on any page here, and click on Member Pages Then click on Edit your Personal Information, Page, and Preferences You will then probably be asked to login in again. Once there, set the drop down box to Show my email address to MEMBERS And then check the box Allow other users to send you email via forms at our site. That will place a link on your member page, and will also show your email address to anyone you email about a trade. Happy gardening and trading Sue

If it's in a fully enclosed porch, that helps. If it's warmer in there during the day, that helps. But it can also help if you get yourself some bubble wrap and wrap the pot a few times. It's kind of the easiest and fastest ways to get a little extra insulation on a pot in the porch if you can't do more serious stuff. If the pot is small enough to fit in a cooler, that works well too- think of the styrofoam caps folks sometimes use on rose bushes to overwinter. If you get box food delivery service that has insulation in the box, that insulation works well too. Yes, you should water. But not a lot. You don't want the dirt to go bone dry, but you don't want it wet either. The plants are dormant and so don't really need water themselves, but the dirt still should be a bit moist. And pots seem to want to stay damp longer when it's cold out so you might not need to water much at all depending.

shark, There was a discussion recently on one of the oak discussion lists about picking acorns before they drop to avoid squirrel depredation. Certainly, it's best to wait until they turn brown and drop on their own, but if the bushy-tailed tree rats are eating them before they're ripe, and you want/need some, you've got to pick 'em early. The concensus was that if they come free from the cap at the point of attachment(I've forgotten the scientific name for that piece of tissue), then they're probably sufficiently developed to be viable.

Rick @ Sheffield's Seed here. I'd like to comment on this post, having just seen it. I'm very pleased that so many people are making good comments about our seed. We do the best that we can to get in high quality seed, store it properly and ship it to our customers so it arrives in good shape. Quercus species are some of the hardest to work with when it comes to keeping quality high. Members of the White Oak group being quite a bit more difficult than those of the Red Oak group. We do store our oak seed just above freezing in a slightly humid cooler so they keep as well as possible. We have been able to store some species this way for over two years while maintaining good viability. We periodically float the seed and trash the floaters to help keep what we do sell the best quality. This past season we also started giving some seed lots a hot water bath to kill weevil larvae and eggs. 120 degrees F for 10-15 minutes kills the weevil without harming the seed. We have had some complaints from overseas customers about members of the white oak group arriving with sprouted and dead radicles. We don't import any Quercus seed for this reason and the fact that USDA requires fumigation on almost all seed lots of Quercus entering the USA. I would say shipping is our biggest problem as we don't have much control over how long the seed sits around in customs, etc. I'd be happy to hear any suggestions from members here on how we might improve our seed and service. Also, if you ever notice that we are out of a particular seed and you have it for sale, we may be interested in buying or trading!