Hello all, I will respond to all of your replies shortly. Thanks for the advice on providing better contact. The thing is, is that I have had privacy issues with stalkers in the past (ex boyfriends). Yes, I know sounds dramatic. But I guess that's one of the many perils of the internet these days. They've found that all they have to do is troll these boards, respond, get a response, and boom they have my email address. It gets annoying. So it's a little tricky.. Will change that, still. If you go to 'my page' you should be able to email/contact me directly now - the link is present. =) This post was edited by RiverNymph on Sun, Apr 7, 13 at 18:52

If anyone wants any of my seeds, they need to send their request via e-mail!! AND...don't forget to send a mailing address. I'm known to have ESP, but I'm not THAT good! :-) Some didn't take, so here's the current inventory (a few on List B are still ripening): Kristi 2009 CROSSES - Seeds for (seed x pollen)- LIST A: #1 - Red Pearl x Limona #2 - Red Pearl x Red Nymph #3 - Red Pearl selfed #4 - Exotica x Red Pearl #5 - Exotica x Pink Diamond #6 - Exotica x Minerva #7 - Exotica x Red Nymph DIDNÂT TAKE #8 - Grand Cru x Misty #9 - Grand Cru x Exotica DIDNÂT TAKE #10 - Red Lion x Misty DIDNÂT TAKE #11 - Pink Diamond x Nymph #12 - Pink Diamond x Limona DIDNÂT TAKE #13 - Pink Diamond x Misty #14 - Misty x Red Pearl #15 - Misty x Pink Diamond #16 - Gilmar x Red Pearl DIDNÂT TAKE #17 - Gilmar x Evergreen DIDNÂT TAKE #18 - Vera that's probably Apple Blossom self DIDNÂT TAKE #19 - Vera/AB x Misty DIDNÂT TAKE #20 - Vera/AB x Rembrant van Rijn LIST B: # Seed x Pollen 21 Limona x Giraffe DIDNÂT TAKE 22 Limona x Showmaster DIDNÂT TAKE 23 Limona x Evergreen (DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH!) 24 Minerva x Limona 25 Minerva x President Johnson 26 Minerva x Exotica 27 President Johnson x Grand Cru 28 President Johnson x Minerva 29 President Johnson x Limona 30 Exotica x Gordie (Limited distribution...~2 seeds/request) DIDNÂT TAKE 31 Exotica x Limona DIDNÂT TAKE 32 Exotica x Queen of Hearts DIDNÂT TAKE 33 Exotica x Jungle Bells DIDNÂT TAKE 34 Lemon-Lime x Jewel Will have second chance as Jewel and Lemon Lime are both about to bloom again! DIDNÂT TAKE 35 Lemon-Lime x Giraffe DIDNÂT TAKE 36 Lemon-Lime x self DIDNÂT TAKE 37 Grand Cru x self DIDNÂT TAKE 38 Gilmar x Red Pearl 39 "Splash" x Jewel (Splash is my San Remo sport (?) 40 "Splash" x self 41 Queen of Hearts x self 42 Santos(?) x Jewel DIDNÂT TAKE 43 Santos (?) x self DIDNÂT TAKE 44 Baby Star x self DIDNÂT TAKE 45 Jade Serpent x self DIDNÂT TAKE 46 Carmen x self 47 President Johnson x Gervase 48 President Johnson x Charisma 49 Gervase x Gordie (Limited distribution...~2 seeds/request) 50 Gervase x Nymph 51 Mutant thorny Gervase self PLANNED Gervase x Jewel PLANNED Charisma x Jewel PLANNED Lemon Star x Jewel

Hazel, how exciting to hear about your plants! It's a fun and rewarding time of year, isn't it? I have decided not to worry so much about doing every little thing just so, Dawn is right, plants know what to do. SO. . . when did you plant your beans? You planted them from seed? What kind of beans did you plant? I have not planted mine yet but I'm thinking I need to get on the ball and do it. My habit has been to plant later rather than earlier and I think this year I want to go ahead and get my seeds in the ground. It's been a warm and extremely dry season so far. I'm sure the colder temps are behind us. I just want RAIN!! My carrots and beets are still very small but at least they have a start. Everything I started indoors, under the grow light I made, I have been very disappointed with. (I'll do my homework for next year) I started my squash and cukes too early and I'm just going to plant seeds next week. My tomatoes are just pitiful. I think I'll keep trying and transplant next month and have a back up plan with plants from a nursery. Here in Enid, my selection is a joke, BUT actually last year I bought a cherry tomato plant, variety unknown, that just did marvelous and produced till the frost did it's number on it. My peas that I planted from seeds look great, about 3" tall now. Oh how I hope I get a good crop, I do love my peas! My asparagus is doing superb, almost all of the 18 or so plants have sprouted and are now covered with soil and hay. Dawn, you have so much experience and give great advice, so here is a question for you. What kind of Espoma do you use? I had no idea there were so many to choose from! I also have been adding organic material to my soil for the past couple of years and it's looking good, I would like to simplify things and get a basic fertilizer, if that is what can be done. I have had the OSU extension center do soil sample tests on different parts of my garden for a couple of years and my pH is good, just needs a bit of potassium and phosphorus, which I have added. Thanks all!

You won't find them in stores for fall for differing reasons that relate to how they grow. With the potatoes, because of the timing of the planting, growth and harvesting of the spring/summer crop, potatoes from that crop cannot be used for fall planting because they would have to undergo a lengthy dormancy of several months. The length of the dormancy is longer than the time frame between our spring/early summer harvesting and our fall potato planting time. Without that dormancy, they won't sprout. Thus, commercial growers cannot produce seed potatoes at the timing needed for fall planting in our zone. This also explains why, when you miss some small potatoes while digging, they generally don't sprout in the same year, but do sprout the next winter/early spring as the soil warms up. By then, their dormancy needs have been met. You have a couple of options, only one of which is viable for this year. 1) Purchase regular grocery store potatoes and plant them. Your best chances of success with this method would involve purchasing organic potatoes. The reason why is that conventionally-grown potatoes usually are sprayed with a chemical that inhibits sprouting. Although it eventually wears off and the potatoes do eventually sprout, it can take a really long time for the anti-sprouting sprays to wear off. Organic potatoes are not sprayed with these chemicals so sprout more quickly. When I do this, I like to buy the potatoes 2 or 3 months before I intend to plant them and put them in the back, darkest corner of the walk-in pantry so they can sit there and eventually sprout, hopefully by the time I want to plant them. 2) Buy your fall seed potatoes in late spring while they're still in the stores. Usually I see seed potatoes in the stores through at least May, even though I bought and planted my seed potatoes in February or March. If you buy them in May, and store them in a cool, dry location, they should survive long enough for you to plant them for fall. 3) Order online from retailers who ship them. A few of the online retailers ship as late as June, although you'd need to order them earlier than that (so all the good ones aren't sold out). Onions are a whole different story. Almost all the bulbing types we grow are daylength-sensitive, with the number of hours of sunlight in the day being the factor that triggers them to bulb up. We plant them while the daylength is relatively short in winter, and the lengthening day-length from May through July triggers them to bulb up. In the fall, our weather is all wrong for bulbing onions because, if you could find them, you'd plant them in the longer daylength of summer and they'd be exposed to decreasing daylength as the days went on. The most likely result, depending on when you planted them, would be that the summer daylength would trigger them to try to bulb up very early in their lives when they didn't have enough stored energy in their leaves to produce a bulb. Or, you'd get perpetual leaf growth that never would bulb up. The biggest onion plant producing farm in the USA, Dixondale Farms, doesn't even try to ship onions for fall planting in our zone. I believe they usually start shipping in October or maybe early November, which is great for people in warmer zones than ours, but doesn't work for us. For fall onions, you can plant bunching onions and use them as scallions. These can be easily grown from seed and you can harvest them anytime you want. They won't give you big bulbs, but they produce tons of small ones. Fall also is the time to plant perennial onions, shallots and garlic. There are some daylength-neutral onion varieties that do not rely on daylength to trigger bulbing, but you still won't find them sold in bundles of plants at this time of year like we see in the spring. You could raise them from seed, but I don't think they'd have enough time in summer/autumn to produce a big bulb like we get in spring/summer. Remember that in autumn, the daylength is constantly decreasing and so are the soil temperatures and air temperatures, so it takes fall crops longer to mature than in the spring and summer. The intensity of the sunlight also is lower, so that makes them grow even more slowly. However, you might get onions that were large enough to be worth the time you spent growing them.