Group Seed Swap Discussion2

Phyllis - That would be hard to deal with the death of a close relative if it was an accident or a mistake made by someone. It's one thing to lose my Mom to cancer. I just accepted that it was God's will, but to lose someone due to a bad decision by a doctor and it shouldn't have happened ... well ... I would be even more upset! So sorry that all of this happened. It's horrible!

LOL! About the Mule's Day Festival. Who would've guess there was such an event! Not I! Very cool that mules are recognized and loved enough to have a festival to celebrate them!

There's one down on the Fl/Ga. line in Cairo, Ga. in the fall. There quiter a few mule days going on. They are a great place to be and Wonderful people. It is really an exciting (for me) place to be. I love it!!One in Cloumbia, Tn. Shelbyville, Tn. Bishop, Ca. (this is a big one) they have several in southMo. they are all over but you have to look for them. I love'em....Thanks Nannie.

I would like to believe that everytime a Dr performs a procedure, the dr is doing the best of their ability, but I also believe that sometimes things are not in their control. you dont get a moneyback guarantee. but proving neglicience is hard to do they say.

Charlene, youre welcome. a gal from Columbia,TN mentioned it to us. it looks fun.

wow. almost a month since anyone posted here.

Well, winter may be back among us. the days are warm, but its the lows of 33 expected tomorrow night that slow down time for us.

below is what I've got started: (from our swap. not the 42 other WS jugs I sowed. some are in the ground already but some are not quite ready)

akatsuki no Murasaki
diluted fuji no muraski
small orange morning glory
picotee pink x fuji no sora
scarlet o'hara
sunrise serenade
pink with pink star (helenahkh)
ipomoea coccinea (another orange)
split indigo blue
lavender moonvine

I ran out of pots.

how many of you plant directly in the ground?

also, my neighbor works in the school cafeteria and brought home lots of gallon mayo plastic containers. white.

are they too small?

Hey Phyl! Looks you are well on your way to MG paradise with all the seeds you have sowed so far! I can't grow mine in the ground anymore because my soil is so lousy here, but containers work great for me. The one gallon plastic mayo containers may be a bit tight for the roots for most MGs you grow, but you might want to try a couple just to experiment. You've got plenty of seeds from the swap, so go ahead and try a few. Make sure you put holes in the bottom of the container! MGs don't like wet feet for too long.

well, I have this UGLY concrete block building that was a former garage turned welding shop and I thought about planting vines directly in the ground.

we are expecting frost tonight. I'm glad I waited.

Is there something against this building (trellis?) that the vines can climb up? Sounds like a great idea to cover it with vines!

nannie I agree, put up some old heavy tree branches or some long strips of cattle fence or something.. that would be great to cover up with. I do however think the smaller containers would be okay if you have a big enough hole for the roots to go itno the grund with.. that is what I do.. I just don't have the room for alot of huge containers, but I managed to get this vine out of a small water bottle planter transferred to a small oval cheap planter last year..
here is messina creeper and setosa in june after transplant.. see the pot?

This message was edited Apr 27, 2010 10:57 PM

same vines july

here is the branch method, that was just a bare branch from the neighbors tree blown down, I stuck in the flower bed and planted rebecca in a 3 quart pot at the base of it and she climbed right up the branch into the shrubs behind it. Beckys method is more controlled and visible, beautiful and easy to care for, I wish I could convince my hubby to let me have a bunch of white tubs around the patio, I am doing good to have what I have without to much grief from him.

This message was edited Apr 27, 2010 11:07 PM

Debra Lovely Rebecca

Thanks, Jackie, and I can't wait to see the seeds of yours blooming! ( I hope you got some, if not let me know)

Debra, I want to try Rebecca and Joyce Cobb this yr, both lovely.

right now there are some dead vines that need to be pulled down, but I thought I might leave them there and let the vines climb it. or I saw some netting, biodegradable netting with 4 inch holes that was cheap, etc.,

OH OH OH....Walmart has these tubs with handles, that are on sale right now for $1.50. 3 gallon pots. in cute colors. I picked up 4 today...4 diff colors. at my store they were on the checkout lane. you know..some places call them trugs, like you can put toys or laundry or whatever in them. and they come in diff sizes. I have an old one that must be a 5 gall that I take with me when I'm weeding, etc., to throw my waste in.

I dont have a lot of pots left over, and I dont really care of the look of the white plastic. it stains with grass and dirt too easily and 'me', i want to keep it hosed off and all white. ( I wish I was that OC about the inside of my house, lol) I can't afford $20 pots that are pretty for every MG or flower I want to grow. I have lots of excuses, I guess.

so I wondered IF or how many actually sowed seeds in the ground??? now, my dad has stuff I can put and immerse. so thats a GREAT idea!

what I decided is that I like to grow things for the look of it...I'm not as interested in saving, sharing, seeds, so that I have to be 'accurate' or 'fussy' about it. I just wanna grown the darn stuff.

and it feels like I'm asking the same questions I asked 2 years ago when I started coming to DG. = o

don't mind me...i'm having a BAD day today. ok. week. I got some really scary news at the dr yesterday and I haven't told my family. when I said it outloud earlier to my Aunt, she said that really worries me about my blah blah bill, and ignored what I said. I dont want to think about anything, but gardening today. cross yer fingers or toes, rub Buddah's belly or what ever for good luck for me, k? mostly what I am doing is feeling STUPID for NOT going back for a mammagram, so that makes it two years in Feb since I had one and now there's a new lump on the right side. but, the Dr is worried mostly about my 'CK' levels, (your muscle enzymes) which were 900 (140 is norm for a Female) and the trouble is they have been elevated for 3 or 4 years.....and now a new Dr , 2 years out of med school thinks I could have a malignancy somewhere hiding, so she sent me to another lab for a 2nd set of blood work, cancer screenings, etc., a chest XRay and I was fortunate enough to get an appt for mammagram in the morning , first thing. the falling ive been doing, the numbness in my legs, the muscle weakness in my arms, she said we needed to get to the bottom of it because it's been going on so long.
I cant tell you how many other Dr's that my Dr would send me to because that was elevated and after tests and tests, they'd say I don't think it's an issue...well, she says different. SOoooo....send up a good thought for me, k? Myositis...thats what she's thinking. first I gotta pass my mammagram.

EVERYONE go get one!

Phyl - {{{Hugs}}} I sent you a dmail. I am praying that everything is okay and that whatever is going on can be easily treated. Please keep us posted on what you find out and how you are doing. Hang in there and know that you have lots of caring and loving folks around you to keep you in our prayers!

prayers with you and for you, Phyl..
Garden the way you want to if it makes you happy that is the most important thing.. I will think positive thoughts for you the rest of the week. Let us know how it goes. (((hugs)))

thanks, ladies. (((Hugs))) back to you. I just wrote Becky and told her the mamagram came back fine. after they saw the dr's order, they did a sonogram also and they didnt see anything there either. so... thats one less thing to worry about!! lets hope the rest of the testing goes as well or better!

that ordeal wiped me out...I started feeling nausous and extremely tired. maybe it's all in my head, lol.but when I came home from the breast center and planted 2 blackberry bushes, a big tub of coneflowers from my dad's, 8 squash plants in my veggie garden, plus hoed beans. cucs at my dad. and cleaned my car out.

keep yer fingers crossed.

fingerz are crossed for ya! You were a busy lady today!

Phyl - So glad the mamagram came out negative! Whew! I'd be a nervous wreck, too! I hope the doctors can figure out what is going on. When you don't know ... you always imagine the worst! I hope you get some answers pronto!!!!

I have baby MGs everywhere! WOOOOOHOOOO and they were started outside.
see? I can grow stuff outside but this old house is too dark and drafty for sprouting indoor stuff.

I hope everyone made it thru the storms ok. we had lots of rain but nothing like the west part of TN. my big garden is a swamp.

i hope this is not a rerun of last year.

Yay! Congrats on all the MG seedlings sprouting for you, Phyllis! I hope you don't get too much rain this year. I'm already seeing very dry temps. We have rain for a few hours every two weeks right now. My self-watering containers are working out really well because of those conditions.

Phyllis - Have you thought about a raised bed? Maybe that would help with your flooding problem?

YAY! Sprouts! Isn't it so fun!

oh yeah. makes me want to sow all of them. those vines on the shed? they are poison ivy vines. yeah, ugh. Lewis sprayed them and they seem to be dead but I'm afraid they'd still be poisonous to touch. but i'm still gonna try to get vines to grow up it after we remove the dead vines.

Becky, if 'my' garden was on my property, I would make raised beds in a heartbeat. but my big garden is on my neighbors land. I call it mine because I tend to half of it. its my crops. my seeds. my tiller, lol. he has an area that he plows every year and since Ive been able to work in the garden, (I couldnt physically the first two years i lived here) he's always plowed enough for me. and he keeps the path to it and around it mowed as well.

This year, ive planted in the back of my half and I've made my rows short, left and right instead of long ways, if that makes sense. the front half is the half that seems to be the lowest part, which accumulated all the water last year. But, we had extraordinary amounts of rain too...if it rains that much this year. well, i cant control the weather.

Phyl - Poison Ivy! Yikes!!! Nice ... NOT!!!

I didn't realize that the property was your neighbor's land. That's nice of him to at least let you use part of it for veggies. Nice of him to plow that and let you use part of his land! :-)

I have areas in my yard that hold standing water too. My plants either die from drought or drown from flooding. There doesn't seem to be a happy medium. But the self-watering containers are working out very nicely for me.

Here is a photo of another section of my garden using the self-watering white buckets that my dh brings home for free. :-)

The Don Juan red climbing roses growing in the background (against my fence) is in the ground. But everything else is in pots. I will be planting seeds in the front container this weekend. And I believe that when it all grows and fills in the containers, it will actually look nice. Or at least I am hoping so! ;-)

Here's another cleaned-out area where I am using the white buckets. I have 3 MG vines growing in this area.

Those two areas are on each side of my water garden area.

here's my lil garden spot. actually, it's a feeding place for the Deer that live in the wood behind us. I have the right side. I had already made my mind that I wasn't going to plant there and my Dad got all fired up and next thing I know...we'd planted 6 rows of corn and beans. but first it was too dry. then cold. then wet. it warmed up and now its supposed to be 40 tonight!!! one row of beans looks real pretty...the rest is all sporadically coming up. he's ready to replant. i'm ready to forget it. I think he thinks he's still in GA

Phyl - WOW! Love that scenery and all that rolling land! Beautiful countryside view! Good luck with your beans and corn! Do you grow tomatoes, too?

Heavy frost on the deck this morning in Cicero, NY I promised I wouldn't whine about the cold, but gee whiz snow on Mother's Day and last night a low of 25, come on with the global warming. I got seeds to plant! We stopped overnight in Chattanooga on our way to KY and the grandchildren visit. Really enjoyed the Botanical Gardens and next door plant sale. TN was very green and beautiful. Lots of wild turkeys in the gardens.

I am doing battle with this woodchuck who thinks my gardens are his personal banquet facility. Here he is eating the cherries before they even begin to develop.

Mittsy, here too!! we've had weather in the 90's a few times but then it slides back to cold temps. it was 40 here several nights last week.

Becky....oh yeah. I spring sowed those, squash and cucs. and this year melon too. Ive got 3 tomato plants, shallots, spinach, and green onions in the back of a flower bed close to the house, but everything else goes out there. and I completely forgot to plant sunflowers. maybe tomorrow night.

Just got my sunflowers planted four different ones.. will have mgs climbing the mammoth ones. another round of Hail storms tommorrow ugh!

Mittsy - I can't believe you have such cold temps right now! Brrrrr .... I love all your wildlife! I hope the warm weather makes it your way very soon! :-)

Phyl - That would be my dream to have lots of space to grow a veggie/fruit garden! I envy your opportunity to do that! I bet the veggies taste awesome!

Debra - Did you grow Sunflowers last year? I can't remember... if so, did you post any photos last year?

Debra...did you plant the sunflowers or mgs first? oh, tell me more! i have lots of sunflower seeds too, lol.

monday and tuesday I'm taking my dad for eye surgery, but I hope I can get those planted this week.

in front is rose campion ( they call it pink mullein around here) and baby red hollyhocks that I got seeds from in our swap. dianthus in the back.

looking good Phyl, I planted the sunflowers out side by the back fence, up against the house on the north end, and in some barrells in the patio garden, mgs are around the bases, ( on the patio and on the house end) I planted mammoth for the mgs to climb, as well as the evening primroses. I also have hanging baskets with mgs in them. I have mgs in everything I think. Bad me..
these were first to bloom, they came from my seeds I collected from my sons place.

here is some of beckys seeds

some from Jackie

Your seedlings look like they have adjusted well to the great outdoors! Your I. purpureas are off to a great start! Love the pretty lavender-blue blooms!

Thanks, I'm going to show some of the other seedling s later this week, after I get done with work, and start my three day vacation.. whoo hoo! The sunrise seranade I got from cibarius are up, and the orange mgs from moretz are up, and well things are popping up everywhere. Tonight I planted plum delight, mazuzaki, and cypress vines. This is a seed from momcat here..oh and I planted her flying saucers, just to see what they are supposed to look like.

All your seedlings look great Debra.