I'm so glad that we are going to have the plant swap this year! I hope the world is better by then. I will update this list as the time gets closer so check back. HAVE Azalea, white (1 gal pot) Dicentra (Bleeding Hearts) (pink), Digitalis (foxglove, purple) Echinacea (Coneflower) (purple/pink) (2-3) Fern "Sensitive" Hemerocallis 'Stella de Oro' (daylily) Hosta (green w/ purple flowers) (NOID) Iris, Siberica (purple) Leucathemum (Shasta Daisy) (“Becky") Lilium Tigrinum “Orange Tiger Lily” (NOT “ditch” day lily) seeds & spread Oxalis purpura (purple w/ pink flowers)s Papavar Oriental (orange but NOT “Prince of Orange” no dark spots, only solid orange. Self-seeds and spread. Phlox, creeping (pink) Primula (Primrose) (squat, Red w/ yellow eye) Rudbeckia Hirta (Black-eyed Susan) Sedum, creeping (citrine green) Stachys (Lambs Ear)

******* POTLUCK ******* Saturday, May 9, 2020 from 10am to 1pm at Gardengramma's Gorgeous Encampment in Burtonsville DIRECTIONS: The swap in Burtonsville is at Allnutt Lane, the house next to the last one on the left "15716" as they have sold the meadow. They still have 2-cares left and plenty of room and shade. PARKING: Someone will be out to direct parking, please follow signage From Rt. 95 towards or from Baltimore - Take exit to Burtonsville, Rt. 198 - go through Burtonsville (cross Rt. 29) continue on Rt. 198 past cemetary. Turn right on Allnutt Lane. Last house on left, brick rambler. From Beltway (495), take Colesville Rd. (Rt. 29) towards Columbia, take exit to Burtonsville (new interchange!) Turn left on Rt. 198, across 29, past cemetary, turn right on Allnutt, etc. From Rockville: Take Norbeck Rd which becomes Rt. 198 after New Hampshire. Past church and tree farm, turn left on Allnutt, etc. REMEMBER: if you don't have plants, you are still welcome to come and join us.....you can bring food for our potluck lunch which usually starts at 12noon after we have swapped/traded plants. It takes a lot of energy to do the swapping!!!! KEY THINGS WE MUST DO (pls read) !!!! POST here what you plan to bring. BRING either something yummy, something to help eat yummy things with, or something (or somebody) to help prepare or clean up yummy things. For specific items, see below. LEFTOVER FOOD: Do NOT leave behind, unless Gardengranma specifically asks Food & Beverage -Food with meat (burgers / hot dogs / chicken) -Food with no meat -Food with plants (edible ones of course) -Food with chocolate -Dessert (with or without chocolate) -Dessert (with or without plants) -Beverages (Bottled Water / Soda / Tea, etc) -We'll try weird things in the name of science, plants, and....chocolate. Chocolate zucchini casserole? Endive ice cream? We're game. Non-food ITEMS: -Sticky nametags (for the plant swappers - so we can connect faces with names & screen names, now that we are swapping in the real world) -Sharpie markers -Charcoal and lighter fluid, if there will be grilling -Utensils -Napkins -Plates -Cups -Large heavy-duty garbage bags for clean-up -Paper towels -Toilet paper -People to do the grilling PEOPLE TO DO THE CLEANING UP (Remember: we must leave no trace of the plant swap.) Any extra plants, check w/ Henny if she would be interested! NOTE: There are electric outlets for crockpots, a microwave for reheating, and a refrigerator for cold things. Happy Gardening! KimKa

Kim, Thanks for the info, but with all due respect, we are avoiding the entire DFW metro area like the plague and staying closer to home since there's over 6,000 coronavirus cases down there. Up here where we shop, we have or have had 2 cases in Carter County, 2 cases in Love County, 4 or 5 in Cooke County, TX, 4 or 5 in Montague County, TX and a few dozen in Grayson County, TX, so we're staying close to home until the case load falls significantly in the DFW metro.....and I think that is why I'm going stir-crazy. You know that almost all my favorite places to shop are down there, not up here. Nancy, I'll have to give the full report later, but we went to the meat market in Muenster TX on Saturday very early and then hit Wal-Mart in Gainesville to get a few things. We were home by 10:30 or 11:00 a.m. which is pretty good because Muenster is a far drive and most of our time was just spent on the road. Then, on Sunday we hit Home Depot as soon as they opened and breezed right in and out, and then ran over to the Sam's in Sherman, largely because I wanted to buy a couple of new water hoses and we like their 120' long ones since our gardening spots are so far from the house. We were at Sam's Club when it opened, and there was quite a line to get in, but by the time we parked and walked to the door, the line was gone, so we walked right in without waiting. Sherman was a real experience, and not necessarily a calm, soothing one. More about that later. I hope your shopping trip was successful. Now that I've been out and relieved the cabin fever and bought a few of the things I wanted, I think I can stay out of the stores again for quite a while. I know we'll be staying away from Sherman for reasons I'll explain later. Larry, I understand the feeling of being behind. I've never been this far behind in planting, and I am trying to stay calm and not be overly worried about it. Since our rain basically stopped, we are rapidly going from lakes and puddles and flooding to dry, cracked ground---you know how clay is about doing that. No rain is falling in meaningful amounts and it is getting hot fast. Our rainfall totals for April are far below normal but we're still above average for the year since January, February and March overachieved drastically in the rainfall category. I should be worried about both the early arrival of the heat and the seeming lack of rainfall over the last 3 or 4 weeks, but I'm so happy to be able to play in the dirt that I am not. I miss having cool-season crops, but had I managed to get them planted, they would have rotted anyway in the wet ground, so I just have to accept that this is how it is this year. Since it is getting so hot so fast, I'm going to plant mostly southern peas and only a small amount of green beans today. I can plant larger amounts of green beans for a fall harvest. When the rain almost totally stops in a rather abrupt manner and the temperatures spike quickly, that usually means a hot, dry, miserable summer is ahead and I don't care right now. I'm just happy the rain has stopped. Marleigh, Can you order the mower part online? That's what Tim has done lately, and the parts ordered have arrived within a few days each time. We did go to HD this weekend and he got some parts he needed for something while I bought plants. We were there shortly after the store opened and got in right away, found what we wanted and got out. By the time we were leaving, there was a line waiting to enter the store. Since we haven't been out shopping, I didn't know this was happening, and I was quite shocked. I do not think I would wait in a line to get into any store, and I hope I don't have to eat those words later if the shopping situation worsens over time instead of getting better. Nancy, I have grown legumes both with and without inoculants and I am not sure I ever could tell a difference. If you are growing beans or peas where any sort of legume has grown in recent years, you don't need the inoculants anyhow. The inoculants might be helpful in newly broken soil, but it would depend. We have lots of clovers and vetches growing here on our property, likely surviving remnants from when our place was part of a family's farm, so I haven't worried much about using inoculants over the years. Amy, There's nothing wrong with random thoughts! Was Margaret's open and did you get to have some goulash? My dad loved goulash and used to make it on the weekends when he took over cooking to give mom a break since she didn't like cooking. Rebecca, I hope nothing in your face is broken. I bet you have turned kinds of pretty colors by today. When Lillie hit that parked car while on her friend's hoverboard a couple of months ago, her face turned delightful shades of yellow, green, blue and purple. These were her first black eyes and she wore the colors proudly after she got over the shock of it all. She had swelling around her nose, but it wasn't broken. I think she was a little embarrassed to go to school with her injuries because she is quiet and shy by nature and didn't want for everyone to be staring at her, but she got over it pretty quickly, and her bruising actually faded more quickly than we had thought it would. I hope yours does too. Jennifer, I would bake my own bread (and we have stored the ingredients to bake at least several months worth of bread, so we could do this) before I'd stand in bread lines. I'm not worried this will be a reality for us though. I might be slightly more concerned that the end result of all the closures of meat-packing plants due to high infection rates of Covid-19 among their employees might result in higher meat prices or in some types of meat being temporarily in short supply. I hope Finbar is going to be alright. Chris has had to drive a couple of his birds to the vet in Dallas within the last few weeks, and his vet is not playing around with the virus. The lobby/waiting room at the vet office is closed. There are Do Not Enter signs on the door. They meet you at the car, greet you, have you fill out the paperwork there, and then they take the pet indoors to be examined while you wait in your car. This is a super busy vet practice because it is one of the few that actually sees and treats tropical birds (among other pets, not a pure bird specialist). When they are done, the return your pet to you, you pay electronically, and they give you whatever medications or supplies you need. He said the vet techs that come to the car are masked and gloved, and of course, you can speak with the vet on the phone if needed. I have to agree with dbarron that throwing up in a purse is a classic cat revenge move. Did somebody or something upset Finbar? Larry, I am glad you are able to get some things done. I hope the rain stays away this week and you can make more progress in the garden. There, it is Monday morning and I am at least caught up on last week. Now, I need to feed my pets and head out to the garden. Just to vex me, the sky is very cloudy and they threw a 20% chance of rain into the forecast. I'm just going to ignore it and carry on as long as there is no lightning. Dawn

That mom cooked? My mom was a wonderful cook, and she took courses and read magazines and books. I liked everything she made from quickies and comfort food to dinner fare and party food. Except, I didn't like her omelettes, and I never liked liver. Mom rarely made it anyway. DH will order it if it's in on the menu in a restaurant because he knows I'll never cook it, but the last restaurant we knew that made his liver is gone for a few years now. Here's a funny thing: to me, liver tastes like dog food. But even though they LOOK like dog food, I do like pâtés--French, Danish, German. And I now like a properly-made omelette. The funny thing about the omelette is this. My mom watched Julia Child, and had her cookbooks, which I now have. But I think she worried about undercooked eggs so her omelettes were a bit overcooked. And she was becoming concerned about salt so they were a bit flavorless to me. At restaurant buffet omelette stations, whatever the added ingredients, sometimes I liked them and sometimes not. But I wondered why a plain omelette couldn't taste good? Well, a few months ago I checked out The French Chef from the library and DH and I spent the shutdown watching. The Omelette Show was a game-changer and DH now makes a plain omelette even I can love.