Melody, I assume you've grown those kinds of seeds before, and know what they normally look like. Is there any chance that they've been exposed to a low dose of herbicide of some kind? I occasionally hear stories of deformed plants due to a bad batch of municipal compost or even a bad batch of commercial potting soil tainted with some kind of persistent herbicide. No way to really confirm those stories, but a low dose of some herbicides (2,4-D overspray for example) can cause curly growth, and it's easy to believe that some species would be more sensitive than others. If the potting mix is tainted, the only thing you could do is wash all the old medium off the seedlings and transplant them into some new mix. Alex

Hi - I was reconsidering how I treat my Camellia sinensis bonsai over the winter. For the past two seasons, I have kept it in a bright sunroom with other plants. There are skylights and HID lights in this room, and temps range from 60s during the day down to 50 or so at night during the coldest part of winter. My concern is that this environment does not provide a deep enough dormancy for this plant. The tree seemed a bit sluggish at the beginning of the growing season this year...some yellowing leaves...and it did not kick in to real growth until later in the summer. It now seems to be fine. I can keep it in my unheated garage this winter, along with some other plants (pomegranate, pine, and some other bonsai and succulents) but there is very little light. Temps in there will go no lower than 40 usually. So, would this be better for the health of the tree? If camellia is dormant, does it care about how much light it gets? Thank you for any advice... Tom

Interesting conundrum. I would like to say the removal of the original Jade plants was an illicit attempt to conceal the fact that this stand of Crassula ovata harbored the shoulderbanded snail. But Crassula ovata is a non-native species that should be removed, so if the snail goes with it, what can you do? According to the link you provided, a population of unknown size lives in Morro Strand beach near the high school. Most of the population are to the South in Montana de Oro State Park. The few that you accidentally took home are probably not the only significant population. That particular snail is supposed to be an eater of dead, decaying plant matter, and is not a garden pest, so it shouldn't be a problem for your plants. If it is, I would erradicate them with Sluggo. It might be interesting to cook some of both kinds of snail in butter and garlic and do a taste comparison. The standard preparation is to let the snails eat corn meal for a few days before cooking to flush out anything you don't want to eat. French escargot vs Californian escargot. Pair this combo with a French and a Californian Merlot. I'm guessing the California snail, like the Californian wine, will beat the French stuff everytime. Bon Appetit! This is very interesting to me as someone who grew up in San Luis Obispo. I knew we had snails, but discovered later that they were the common brown snail, Helix aspersa, which are not a native species. I never knew of the Morro shoulderband snail, or its smaller cousin, the Big Sur shoulderband snail, found to the north. I guess these are found along the coast, but I wonder if they couldn't also be found in the creekbed ravines of the Santa Lucia range. You have given me an interesting project. I suspect this snail may not be as endangered as the EPA thinks. I am going to start looking for these. Brad

I think it is possible that "all conditions being perfect" a worm could eat it's own weight in material in a day. Trick is, how often is everything perfect and the worms actually eat the microbes that are digesting the scraps and bedding more than eating the scraps themselves. I find that a bedding like shredded corrugated cardboard tends to turn into castings with very little food added. Anyway, the temp is probably what has slowed down the worms there and since it isn't a very old worm farm the worms are probably still taking a fair bit of time to consume things in the first place. I found that it took a long time for my first 2# of worms to really get going but now it seems that I will need to be feeding them much more if I want the herd to keep growing. Here is a link that might be useful: My Bin