hedwig, have you contacted your local nurseries to inquire about bulk purchases of potting mix? Perhaps you can set up an account with them. I don't know what kind of business papers are required in your area, but sometimes you can show these papers and get a business account (wholesale pricing, credit, etc.) with suppliers. As far as getting your plants drenched, do you have a local (or not so local, lol) agency that deals with organic farming/agriculture? Perhaps they can give you some alternatives to the drenching and/or repotting. If not, perhaps you will just have to raise your prices to take this extra work (repotting) into consideration. If your customers are aware that you are organic, and know what that entails, they may be willing to pay the higher prices. Glad to hear that you were happy with the results of your first stall. It is encouraging when things go well the first time. Congrats! And good luck! :) Dee

Dawn, I understand about your Mom. My Dad died when I was 16, so of course, that was tough. My husbands parents both died in their early 60's about 26 months apart, with the death of my husband's grandfather in between. My mother is still living and will turn 97 this July. After my DH retired from the Air Force, we moved back to that area so that we would be there to help out a bit, since my sister has always had to help my mother a lot. Well, we lived there almost 12 years and so did she. We were still young enough to work a few more years and needed to move to do that. Al took a job with the Boy Scouts and covered the three most NE counties in Oklahoma. After a couple of years, he was tired of never being home. I was working at the courthouse so he took a job there. I have not worked for several years but he continued to work until the end of February this year. I stay home but he still has a finger in lots of pies. Oklahoma has a program called "Drug Court" which gives people one last chance when they would otherwise would be going to the pen. He serves on that committee. When he leaves there today, he said he was going to the senior citizens center to help them with a vehicle purchase. He is on that committee also. He heads the male youth program at church. Retirement does not mean relaxing to him, just more time to do what he wants. Yes, when I first discovered the Oklahoma forum, you were covering plants. You don't need that extra stress this year so it is probably best to wait awhile to plant. Oh yes, the tomato challenge! I remember a lot of that down there, but I don't know too many people that garden up here. I have some small gardens around me but they are not too serious about them. One did plant a few toms and squash but that area now has a big building on it. The people behind me are gardeners but are week-enders so they have toms, onions, lettuce, and cucumbers most years. We normally get enough rain that it takes care of itself all summer. They pick it on weekends. A young couple moved in next to them a few years ago, but he is so rude that I can't stand to talk to him. I have tried a few times, but gave it up as a lost cause. Too bad, because he has a large pile of mulched timber in his yard and I know he can never use it all. However, a few years ago at a wedding I was chatting was our former senator and he "braggingly" told me that he tries to get his first tomato by the 4th of July. The chase was on. Every year I tell his wife to go home and tell Rick we are having our first tomato. Love to beat him. I had to laugh about the MANY tomato varities. Earlier this spring, my husband said that he thought by now I would have narrowed my choices and just planted two or three kinds. I hated to let him see me plant anymore seeds. LOL Then a couple of days ago, I said that I had all of these new seeds to try but already had so many planted. He said, "Well I would plant them anyway." He knows I will never find a place to plant all of them and I think he enjoys dropping off the remainder to the senior citizens. One year I had so many weird ones, like stuffers and such. Those people grew them in their flower beds and last year wanted to know if I had more of those. I know this is weird, because this is a paste tomato, but my favorite tasting tomato is Opalka. Everyone talks about planting them to use them for paste, but I am wondering just how many take that weird looking tomato to their table. Most of the winter I buy Roma in the store, but occasionally spring for a $3 box of small grapes. I don't like Roma and have no desire to grow them, but my husband thinks we should always plant them. I told him I would plant 2 in the garden and if he wanted anything else he would have to grow them in pots. He agreed. Can you believe it, with all of those other great choices. Actually Opalka is really his favorite also. This is the only location where I have grown it so I don't know what it is like elsewhere. I plan to take better care of my garden this year, so by the end of the year I may be sorry I planted so many. During our Air Force years, I didn't always have a garden so when I did I tried to plant everything. I have narrowed that down a lot and I don't try to do that. Some things I just must have tho. In the spring I need lettuce, broccoli, and sugar snap peas, and I usually plant a few onions and potatoes. The summer garden needs cucumbers, squash, okra, a few green beans and lots and lots of tomatoes and peppers. I always think I will plant a fall garden, but I am usually worn out by then. Besides you have to start when it's hot for some of those things. Guess I am too old and too lazy for that. I do enjoy growing things tho. I have a two new beans to try this year. One is Red Noodle yard long which I understand is really from the pea family instead of bean family, but I have never grown it. The other is called Insuk Wang Kong that a man sent me from Washington. It came from his Korean wife's family and didn't have a name. She just called it a king bean because of the size. Zeedman and "our Oklahoma macmex" named it Insuk Wang Kong. Insuk is her name and the other part is king bean, I think. Anyway, I saw a picture of the bean growing and I just had to get some to try. It is a climber and has red blossoms. I can't wait to try it. It produces the biggest shelled beans I have ever seen.

I let each individual plant tell me. if its late season (Late Oct or early Nov for me) and the bottom leaves are yellowing then I should reduce watering to the level of maintaining a low amount of moisture in the soil. I run my finger through the top 1 or 2 inches of soil and if the soil is darker than the top crust and my finger gets dirty (more than just dusty) I'll wait a week to water. I could use a moisture meter to see the % but have always just used dead reckoning. If the tips and recent season green growth are feeling soft or wrinkled I will give that plant a little more this week and revisit in a week. I also watch for warm spells since it seems most of mine only partially hibernate and the greenhouse can go over 90 degrees if its not vented. I typically go into the greenhouse every week to police up dropped leaves and make sure things look good. I randomly squeeze branches, pull off any dead material such as shriveling up inflos, "claws" that didnt develop, and feel for softness and look for other danger items. For me it's only about a half hour of time to handle my collection (never counted and don't plan to but would say 30-50). IMO having a good soil mix and plants well supplied with nutrients over the growing season can help by being a little more forgiving one way or the other. Its really hard to use a sequence of care that isn't specific to your local variables. I hope this helps and you experiment and find the method that works best for your plant(s).

Actually, that is what I planned on doing with my arbor only using the bush version at the foot of the climbing sport, and also using large flowered climbers with their small flowered look alikes. A couple of years ago there were a couple of good posts on the latter. For the prior, I have, for example, the two versions of La France, Crimson Glory, Clotilde Soupert and Belind'a Dream. For Blossomtime I have Archduke Charles and Jean LeJoie as a small flowered version. The Cl. miniatures are very useful for this purpose, such as Red Cascade and Firefall. Even the Kosters have a climbing version. I plan to stagger them slightly. I have many ND, but none for this arbor. Duchesse de Brabant, Quietness and possibly Bloomfield Abundance have the same tones in my yard, but may not all be hardy . Cecile Brunner has a similar shape when opening.I also have shorter climbers to go on trellisses between the main posts to get as many roses in as possible trying to stagger thornier ones with those having smoother canes. I have probably 30 roses for this project, but alas, no arbor yet. : (( I'm planting them against a brick wall this summer since I'm tired of babying them so at least I'll know how they'll look and fare when I finally can get to the arbor.