I had incredible yields of Khing Yai - there's still some in the ground so I haven't counted it all yet, but looks like at least 10:1. Yellow Hawaiian was only 3:1, Bubba Blue was 4:1. Big Kahuna was a flop, 1:1. It rotted in the trays and didn't sprout. I can't sell frozen ginger without having an approved kitchen. I've candied a lot of ginger and started making ginger chews and hard candy. Both of these freeze well, make nice gifts and are good for cold and flu season. I get about a cup of juice from a pound of ginger. I puree it in a food processor and strain with a sieve. I use 1.5 cups white sugar, 3/4 cup corn syrup and 1 cup of ginger juice. I use a candy thermometer and heat it to 250 degrees for the chews, 300 degrees for hard candy. Makes a very spicy candy. I managed to find a grocery store to sell some of my ginger to. I got $10/lb, and they sold it at $15/lb in the store. The could only sell around 10 lbs a week tho. I can easily sell that much at even a moderately busy farmers' market, and was surprised they couldn't move it more quickly. The "baby" part of it doesn't seem to be as important as local and organic. I cut back on the amount of ginger I'm growing next year, but am growing more turmeric. I've talked to a few produce buyers who are very interested in turmeric, even if they don't want ginger. I think I'm going to lower my prices next year, maybe $8/lb wholesale for ginger and $10-$12/lb at the farmers' market. Maybe higher for turmeric, depending on my yields. I made a mistake in not covering my ginger inside my high tunnel when it got into the 20's. The stems and leaves froze, but it took a few weeks for them to completely die off. It's been about a month now and the ginger that's still in the ground looks great. Some of my ginger had developed a skin, but I think those plants had dried out; it doesn't seem to be from freezing.

Swappers: To all of you who joined my swaps. IÂm very sorry that IÂve been ill and havenÂt felt well enough to finish these up. IÂm sure you were all anxious to get your seeds back to get them planted and growing or trade what you didnÂt want from the swap seeds. I know most of you included a list of what you sent in for the swap, a few of you didnÂt. Most marked the seeds packets they sent in, others didnÂt which has made it impossible to tell how many seeds to send back to you. I have e-mailed those two people and asked if they remember how many seeds packets they sent in. One will not answer me; the other person isnÂt sure. I have e-mailed one many times trying to get an answer. I hope they arenÂt angry with me for being ill. At the time I started these swaps I was feeling pretty good and thought, I could handle them, unfortunately that hasnÂt been the case. Another problem was since some of these swaps only had two-five people in them and some sent 15 packs while others sent 40 packs; some no repeats, some more than 4 of each, it was hard to do fair trading. Lesson learned from these swaps is if you donÂt have at least 15 people in a swap someoneÂs going to be disappointed. IÂve been sick about the whole thing. IÂm very sorry if some of you are unhappy with the seeds you received. I wish IÂd never have sent out any of the swaps and put all the seeds back into the envelopes and paid the postage to send them right back to everyone. Anyway; I hope no one gets angry about the seeds they get in the tree, vine or rare seed swap. I didnÂt have a lot to work with. I wouldnÂt blame any of you if you never joined another swap of mine. If anyone feels they have been shorted (PLEASE) contact me or post on the RR swap threads for all to see, instead of holding a grudge or talking behind my back. IÂm swapping the tree seeds tonight and getting them the heck out of here ....IÂm putting the last of the rare seed swap in the mail tomorrow too. I finished the vine swap a few weeks ago. Only a few participants e-mail they were happy and or they received the seeds. I hope this letter finds you all in good health and may all the seeds you plant grow well for you. A few people have e-mailed and asked why they havenÂt received their seeds back yet. I explained that IÂd been very ill, I guess to some seeds are more important that a persons health. Some guess people have never been sick with anything but the flu, someday you might understand what IÂm going through mentally and physically. I want to send a special thanks to my good friends who e-mail me to see how IÂm doing; bless you for understanding. My health is not in my hands itÂs something IÂm unable to change right now. Happy Gardening! Sincerely, Jody

Becky I ordered from them when I first started swapping, you have to be careful of the amount of seeds you get in the packages. I found that almost all the packs were opened a bit on the side at the very bottom and seeds were falling out. Other than that their seeds are of good quality and nicely priced. :) I went to Target yesterday, they have a great clearance rack full of gardening stuff. Unfortunately I didn't see anything that I could/would use or needed. :( I found their seeds too! They had Burpee Fordhook line, and the Sean Conway seeds. I noticed that the selection of Burpee seeds were completely different than the Burpee seeds I have found at Walmart and Lowes. :D YAY! I had the twins with me and they were not letting me look too much, so I only got a few packs, gonna check out a few more places this weekend and see what I can find.

This is not going to be a forced labor camp though, just sticking some plants in the dirt and maybe raking some leaves and debris. "Yard work" is likely to consist of picking up some dead branches that fell... I'm trying to dig up a tiller to get some planting beds and rows of stuff in the ground. I have grand plans but I'm limited by the lack of a tiller. We have about a 1 acre parcel along Summer Ave that I'd like to get some fig tress at least along the frontage and elderberry and black currant bushes installed lining the culvert.. Sadly my elder cuttings are doing very poorly right now. Went to FL for a week and moved all my cuttings outside. Grapevines are pushing buds and figs are rooting but the once fabulous elderberries are looking pretty bad, may even loose them ;-( Here is a link that might be useful: Map of grounds and planned plantings