Here’s an experiment — commentor Jeff G sent a video clip of his blooming clivias:
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Some tips from @gwmag on going to the #allotment during the #CoronavirusLockdownUK
https://t.co/BnpOtXgagG— Andrew Wilcox – I?sheds (@unclewilco) April 2, 2020
From the British site Allotments & Gardens:
In the UK, allotments are small parcels of land rented to individuals usually for the purpose of growing food crops. There is no set standard size but the most common plot is 10 rods, an ancient measurement equivalent to 302 square yards or 253 square metres.
The land itself is often owned by local government (parish or town councils) or self managed and owned by the allotment holders through an association. Some allotments are owned by the Church of England…
Basically, what we Yanks would call a community garden (although of course they’ve got a much longer history over there). Looks to be a ton of useful information at Allotments & Gardens, allowing for cultural differences (I *hope* the line about ‘do not try to boil a courgette [zucchini]’ is a joke!).
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We can’t travel, but commentor Mike S sends a House Beautiful link for “5 Gardens You Can Virtually Tour” — including Monet’s garden at Giverny, England’s Waddesdon Manor, the Chicago Botanic Garden, Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, and the ‘Top Ten Attractions at Kew’.
And for those who claim they don’t have the skill to photograph your own gardens, some help!
Nikon is offering free online photography classes for all of April – The Verge https://t.co/6pwiu2o7oC
— a bitch who didn’t ask you (@BtSquared2) April 3, 2020
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Burpee just sent me an unexpected box with the delphiniums I ordered back in February. And Murphy help us, it’s maybe? probably? safe to plant them directly in the spot I had in mind (a south-facing site next to a window) rather than temporarily potting them up for a few more weeks… since my impulse, when the mail-order tomatoes start arriving in mid-May, will be to ignore everything else.
What’s going on in your garden (planning / dreaming), this week?
Adam Lang
You’ve never had English food, have you?
satby
Jeff G, those clivias are beautiful! I had never heard of that plant before so I looked it up. It would be lovely to have, but at hundreds of $ a pop, I will just have admire yours!
@AL, put the delphiniums in the ground, and make a garden cloche of an old gallon plastic jug. But off the bottom and you can remove the top for air circulation and to prevent overheating, but our it back on if you get a frost or freeze warning. I do that for all my first year plants over winter, and even though we had several days below freezing, most of my tiny shrub rose start s never even went dormant.
charluckles
Beautiful flowers.
It’s going to be wonderful weather here today. I have some spring digging to do. Including finding homes for the overabundance of new trees that were delivered. Hoping I have a little time to work on repairing and refreshing a few whimsies with some paint I found on sale at the local hardware before all hell broke loose.
Gvg
I am planting trays of seeds. I am on my 3rd wave of using all my wire cage covers. Long ago I learned that squirrels would dig up my new seed trays if I didn’t protect them. I have read that it may be because they can smell new soil and assume it’s caused by another squirrel burying a nut, so they run to try and steal it. I can’t say on that, but if I don’t protect them, I come out the next morning to find all the soil dug out, labels tossed around randomly and my work wasted, so I have learned how to protect them. I make hardware cloth covers. Basically set on top cages for 4 trays of seedlings. Most are 6 inches high, but this year I made a few taller so I could grow taller plant baby’s.
I have 10 cages so I can start about 40 trays at a time. This year, I have a lot more seeds to start, so I keep reusing them. My first wave was older seed I had bought while house hunting. I had expected that to go much faster than it did, so some of the seed wasn’t fresh and didn’t germinate well. Seed I bought recently has done much better. I bought more as the reality of staying home for months seemed more likely. Also my mother asked me to start seeds for her too so it’s really endless. She is also an excellent gardener, but considers me better at seed starting. She has been giving me a lot of old seed so I don’t expect those to be as successful. Oh well. Some old seed has been successful though and it is a way to clean out a backlog.
I have planted out a lot. The next few months should be nice. Hope the rains start soon.
I recently discovered Geoseeds, a wholesaler who sells to the public too. There seeds seem to be fresher and they sell most seed by 500 or 1000 for the same kind of prices Burpee, or Swallowtail or Edenseeds or others sells 20 or 50 for. I like masses of bloom, so I have hopes this season.
satby
In my own garden news, my crocus are blooming beautifully, as is my blue squill. I hope they can naturalize more quickly in the sandy soil here compared to the pottery clay stuff at my old place in MI.
inside I had started my tomato seeds late, but had 5 out of the 8 pods germinate (two each of 4 different kinds). Last night one of the cats knocked the whole shebang down including the heat mat, and then apparently found the wet peat pods fun to play with. I may be able to save three of my seedlings, but until they grow and set tomatoes I don’t know which they are. Starting over today, the three will be transplanted into bigger peat pots. ?
Also later today doing an emergency run to my kid’s pizza place in Chicago for a TP pickup. Other kid in Lexington is close to the end of the 20 rolls they had when the crisis hit (they had 12, but could only find a 6 pack about a month ago, and he thought that should be plenty for his family of three until the supply chain caught up. Nope)
mrmoshpotato
@satby: Thin crust TP or deep dish? Stuffed TP?
Anne Laurie
But everyone tells me it’s gotten so much better, since they let Those People in! (Kebabs & curries FTW.)
satby
@mrmoshpotato: it’s a Rosati’s, so he can make all of the above. They mostly do thin crust though. Take out only. I seem to remember you’re a North Sider? This is on the South Side, at 111th and Kedzie.
satby
@Anne Laurie: oh, it has! But the curries were there for a while, ever since the Empire days. In Ireland too.
mrmoshpotato
@satby: Yup. I wouldn’t consider 111th to be Southside. It’s more like “Damn is that far south” side!
Aleta
@satby: http://www.cliviausa.com/categories/By-Parent-Coloration/Green-Throats/?sort=priceasc
satby
@mrmoshpotato: yeah, pretty far for youse guys up nort!
satby
@Aleta: wow, thanks! Those are much more reasonable. I followed the link on growing them to White Flower Farm and they were out of stock but prices ranged from $125-900!! WFF does have great stock, they sell plants that are more mature, and for a plant I really don’t want to fail I’ve very occasionally bought from them. But they’re usually not that far off from average prices!
OzarkHillbilly
@Aleta: The pricing there kinda cracks me up. 9 @ 29.95, 1 @ 29.99, 2 @ 30.00.
I’m trying to imagine why one would cost 1 penny (or 4 pennies) more than another.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Well if you really want, Clivia USA will be happy to take $750 for the their Adult Bloomed Hirao Green Mother Clivia Plant.
Beautiful stuff there, just a little rich for my blood.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: I was reading more and these are a hybridized crosses, and the seedlings are those prices. Looking at plant sizes, you start to get into those higher price ranges. But boy, I’m thinking of gambling some of my government relief check on a few of the seedlings ?.
the cheaper ones.
HeartlandLiberal
While living in Germany, even in large cities we would see areas set aside for gardening purposes like this. Here is quote from online article about how it is in Germany.
People visiting Germany for the first time might wonder why so many well-kept “slums” appear to be scattered all over the country. Such sites are actually allotment gardens, a phenomenon known under various names in German, such as a “Schrebergarten,” “Kleingartenanlage” or “Gartenkolonie.” Each small plot (“Parzelle”) has its own hut, and people can rent these spaces to do their gardening.
While “urban gardening” recently turned into every hipster’s pastime, Germany has a long-established culture of city gardens, dating back to the period of strong industrialization and urbanization in the 19th century.
Today’s gardeners are rediscovering the joys of digging the earth, making their statement against consumerism by growing their own vegetables. But when the allotment gardens were initially created, they aimed to combat urban families’ extreme poverty and malnutrition.
First called “gardens of the poor,” they are now known as “Schrebergärten,” inspired by the “Schreber movement” launched in 1864, which drew on the ideas of German physician Moritz Schreber.
During World Wars I and II, the food produced in those gardens became essential for many families’ survival.
https://www.dw.com/en/a-brief-guide-to-german-garden-colonies/a-39133787
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: I know, right? But some seedlings go as low as $10, and those are what I’ll test out. I’d like a low maintenance house plant that would bloom so beautifully.
OzarkHillbilly
@ 10 bucks a pop it’s tempting but I’m a little too cheap. I like to buy the half dead plants nobody wants at 25 or 50 cents each and then try to resurrect them.
Geminid
Wierd-but-true gardening story. I was working on a landscape construction project near Crozet VA, on a rise about 4 mile from the Blue Ridge. My customer told me about her neighbor at the top of the rise who at one time had 200 lavender plants, a lavender press for oil, and an in ground watering system on account of the site’s dryness. Then ~2005 there was an earthquake 40 miles east near Louisa. In addition to damaging stone work at the National Cathedral in DC, the quake opened up a spring on her property. Now it’s too wet, she’s down to 50 lavender plants.
satby
? normally, I would be too, but now Jeff G has me totally intrigued!
Jeffg
@satby: The reason they are so expensive is to grow them from seed to flowering plants takes at least five years, usually longer. The yellow plants seem to take longer to flower.
The pot of orange clivias is 30 years old now. they were grown from seed. The first yellow plant that appeared is about ten years old. The second pot with two clivias in it is now about 23 years old. I use to think the yellow ones were expensive at $150 for a plant but now it seems a bargain.
I pollinate the flowers. The seeds take a year to develop. I met a guy through Craigslist I give my seeds to. He starts them. Keeps them for a few years and gives them away.
Jeffg
@Aleta: Those are cheap prices for a clivia seedling. Grown from seed the first year you get one leaf about 3” long. The second year one more appears about the same size. The third year maybe you get two or three more leaves. The fourth years maybe four or five new leaves. The plant is now getting bigger. The fifth year if you are lucky you may get a flower spike. Most likely it will take 6 or 7 years to flower.
I have one yellow plant I started from seed 15 years ago. It still hasn’t flowered. I think next year it will.
raven
@Geminid: This is the lavender farm by Not Max’s house.![]()
Jeffg
I am wondering about the food supply this coming summer. I will grow more than I need just in case.
I found a package of red quinoa seeds I bought five years ago to make a salad I never made. It was about a pound of seeds. Dug up a spot yesterday and threw them all in not knowing how viable the seeds are.
I have other vegetable seeds in pots in a south window. We seem to be a month ahead of schedule in Philadelphia with the weather. May plant out the tomatoes started the end of this month.
Cheryl Rofer
I’ve had this little pot of cattleyas for several years. They did well, but didn’t bloom. I asked our local orchid grower, from whom I had bought them, how to bring them into bloom. He suggested more sun, so I put them in the sunniest place in the house, and voila!
OzarkHillbilly
It’s supposed to be dry this week so I should be able to get the veggie garden tilled, tho right now all I have to go in it is a dozen broccoli plants. Misery goes into lock down tomorrow so I guess I will brave the local Lowes and Orschelns to try and get a few more plants.
I also don’t have the straw that I need for the hugelkulture beds and I might be able to get some at Orschelns if I want to pay a premium so we’ll see about that too. It would be nice to get that particular project done now because after the 15th gardening goes into overdrive.
Otherwise, most of the things that should be growing are growing and a lot of things I wish wouldn’t are also.
OzarkHillbilly
Cool.
satby
@Jeffg: wow, they are a big time commitment! So a seedling with 4-5 leaves us approx how many years from blooming? 5-ish?
WereBear
This was my practice with roses when I lived on Long Island. I had 30 of these rescues, out of 80 plants.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cheryl Rofer: I bought some heirloom iris corms at an iris show a few years ago and planted in the only available bed I had in front of a forsythia. That forsythia had quite overshadowed them and they stopped blooming a couple years ago. I transplanted them this winter and voila! I see blooms coming up on 2 of them already.
satby
@raven: very pretty! Never been to Hawaii myself, but I imagine the whole state is pretty.
satby
In other news, I discovered that the diy bandana no-sew mask just pops right off of my Dumbo ears. I’ll have to go out bandit style today.
Jeffg
@satby: Exactly. Probably 4 to 5 years old.
charluckles
@Jeffg:
Thank you so much for sharing. Those are beautiful and I have never heard of them.
They appear to be growing happily in a living space. Do they stay there year-round?
Dorothy A. Winsor
On my walks this week, I saw forget-me-nots, crocuses, and some shivering daffodils. They gave me hope.
Mousebumples
My husband has planted bell pepper seeds in containers that are currently on our dining room table. I don’t trust the Wisconsin weather enough to not freeze in the next few weeks, so we’ll water and nurture them in here for now.
Garlic and Crocus plantings are coming up nicely outside, though. ?
Sloane Ranger
@Adam Lang: How dare you sir!I
Iam really looking forward to my liver and onions tonight. And how can a nation that invented cheese you squeeze out of a tube and wished KFC and McDonald’s on the world complain about other nations food?
Seriously, rationing during WWII and for some years after played merry hell with our culinary traditions but these have been reclaimed since the 1970’s and I’ll back a good well cooked British meal against any other nations food any day. Haven’t you heard of the Great British Bake Off?
Elizabelle
From the rules for using British allotment gardens (BBC link in Anne’s post):
Hard times are upon us. Social distancing is 2020.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Aleta: Has anyone here has ordered these small seedlings from cliviausa? I don’t know them but would like to expand my collection which is alot like @Jeffg‘s orange ones all grown from one parent plant that I pollinate and one yellow plant that was a gift about 20 years ago that hasn’t bloomed yet.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Ten Bears
Seriously, a banner ad for drumpf uck ’20 stuff?
OzarkHillbilly
For the first time in the 10 years we have been living here we got the “full” enjoyment of our magnolia blossoms. They lasted almost 2 weeks tho on day 4 or 5 we did get a heavy rain that beat them up considerably.
debbie
My back’s a bit sore this morning. Yesterday, I spent more than 45 minutes walking every street in my neighborhood, touring the trees (this town’s been declared an arboretum). Good thing, since it rained overnight. Jeez, spring is beautiful!
Uncle Cosmo
Those UK “allotments” bring back an uplifting memory of the second thing I saw on my first day in Europe (40 years ago this summer!) that drove home what a different world I had landed in:
(Just FTR the first thing was in the airport: the guns prominently slung over the shoulders of the generally affable & unthreatening police wandering about. My hair stood on end when I realized that if any one of them went berserk, that cute little Uzi/Skorpion/equivalent was likely to leave a couple dozen of us in the vicinity grievously wounded or dead. Yikes!)
Kristine
Yesterday I bought one of those “living heads” of lettuce, which has the roots attached. I stuck it in some water–if the thing revives, I will c/a/l/l/J/o/h/n/C/a/r/p/e/n/t/e/r plant it in a container and put it outside once temps moderate. Winter keeps pushing back here in far NE Illinois. Still expecting nights in the low 30s.
That may be the extent of my veggie gardening this year, unless I decide to give herbs and salad greens a try in containers as well.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kristine: Fresh basil is sooooo worth the little bit of effort.
Nicole
This month is National Poetry Month and my son’s school encourages kids to video themselves reading a poem (one they wrote or otherwise) and upload it to the school’s site, so we’ve been looking up poems, which has been fun. The Sunday gardening post made me think of “The Catalpa,” by mid-century American poet John Ciardi, which so well sums up the joys and frustrations of tending to the sometimes temperamental plant lives in the yard:
“The catalpa’s white week is ending there
in its corner of my yard. It has its arms full
of its own flowering now, but the least air
spills off a petal and a breeze lets fall
whole coronations. There is not much more
of what this is. Is every gladness quick?
That tree’s a nuisance, really. Long before
the summer’s out, its beans, long as a stick,
will start to shed. And every year one limb
cracks without falling off and hangs there dead
till I get up and risk my neck to trim
what it knows how to lose but not to shed.
I keep it only for this one white pass.
The end of June’s its garden; July, its Fall;
all else, the world remembering what it was
in the seven days of its visible miracle.
What should I keep if averages were all?”
Nicole
Also, re: yard decorations, if not plants, anyone on Twitter should go search Erick Son of Erick, who is trending because… oh, I don’t want to spoil it, but, to quote soonergrunt’s tweet reply to him: “Uh…”
Kristine
@Jeff G: your clivia are gorgeous! I love orange/peach flowers. They brighten wherever they happen to be.
Kristine
@OzarkHillbilly: Now here’s the thing–I’m not the world’s greatest basil fan. I do love thyme–regular and lemon–and tarragon, so I may try those. Maybe mint. I also love cilantro, but it always bolted before I could harvest much.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
They started selling small basil plants in peat pots at Giant Eagle. You’re supposed to keep it in a small glass and keep the roots wet. It obviously doesn’t flourish, but I never ran out of basil leaves for my tomato sandwiches last summer.
O. Felix Culpa
Good morning! Ms. O and I spent much of yesterday working in the front garden, weeding and prepping the soil for some new plantings. We hope to get a new fruit tree (plum, probably) to replace the sapling that didn’t survive the winter. Did a lot of weeding as well. Our established apricot tree has finished blooming, the little nectarine is putting on a pretty show, and the apple and pear trees are budding and should flower soon.
Indoors, my onions (from seed) are thriving and I have five varieties of tomatoes started. I’ll plant my pepper seeds on April 15th. I’m using cow pots instead of peat pots this year. So far so good…and fortunately no cats to overturn my seedling trays! I’ll direct sow lettuce, chard and spinach outdoors in about ten days. Our frost-free date is May 15th, so I have a little while to go before it’s safe to plant my seedlings outdoors, although the onions are hardier and can get transplanted earlier.
My garden water pump died a few weeks ago. Thankfully I was able to get it replaced fairly quickly. The guys were glad for the work and since it was outdoors we figured it was safe to have tradesmen here. I’ll test my automatic drip irrigation setup in a few weeks. Happy gardening!
debbie
@Nicole:
Good God.
Nicole
@debbie: RIGHT? The stupid, it’s a physical pain sometimes.
debbie
Hey, AL, rethink the planting this week. The weatherman here says there’s a chance of snow flurries towards the end of the week (Ohio).
debbie
@Nicole:
I chalk the stupidity up to snorting too much sourdough mother.
Aleta
@Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): I haven’t ordered from them. They seem to have a range of prices from $9, 19, 35 … up to $150 or more; I thought it might be the age of the plant that increases the price since he mentions starting the cheapest ones from seeds.
We have clivias blooming in the kitchen; they’ve boosted our spirits more than usual this year. (I’ve never known their name until today.) Years ago someone gave us a pot he was throwing out and said, “You can ignore these, forget to water then, put them anywhere and they will bloom anyway.” (Reading about them now I can see why he thought that.) Years later we fished two more out of the river after our neighbor upstream had thrown them away, and we put them in a pot.
They ask for nothing all year and then they flower. Amazing.
Auntie Anne
@Jeffg: I inherited a large orange clivia 10 years ago from the original owner of my house. I had no idea what it was until this post.
I’ve been treating it like my Boston ferns – letting it summer outside (in the shade), and having it sit on the floor in indirect sunlight in the winter. It seems to be doing just fine – growing and blooming every year.
My problem is that the plant has outgrown the largest pot I can buy (30”). Can it be divided?
sdhays
I don’t garden, but I have been to Monet’s gardens at Giverny and they are even more stunning than the photos suggest. Just amazingly beautiful.
debbie
Dammit. I bought a couple of succulents on Tuesday and they’ve begun showing signs of mealybug. Do I expend rubbing alcohol I’m saving to make hand sanitizer to get rid of them or just toss them both out? ?
chris
Still the end of winter here in Nova Scotia but the good news is… peepers! They started two nights ago and were a little louder last night when I went out with the boys. There’s a couple of freezing nights in the forecast but spring will come!
Nicole
@debbie: Ha!
chris
@debbie: Had to look but a dish soap and water spray might work.
BruceFromOhio
The lenten rose and daffodils are blooming, and the iris are poking their little green heads up. The forsythia is popping out nicely, and all the lilacs are starting to bud. MrsFromOhio spent the last two days raking, trimming and cleaning up. I’ll have a ton of leaves and crap to pick up and put out for the trash pickup tomorrow. I pulled the boat out of storage and spent the day cleaning it up and getting it ready to either sell or go drop in the water somewhere. Broke in the new fire pit. I go today to pick up the giant rototiller from MFO’s sis, and we’ll start figuring out what plots will be doing what this year. Since we put up the new fence, it’s kept the deer away, so we’ll have opportunity to do some things differently. I’m all in for as much basil varieties and tomatoes as we can stand. Too early to do too much in the dirt, the ground is still saturated from all the rain, with more rain and cool temps forecast all week. Yuck! Very much looking forward to nicer weather.
@chris: They are here, too! Out in the woods, it’s a cacophony. We even have one little lonely guy out by the creek at the back of our property. Always a welcome sign.
Aleta
@Jeffg: Thanks for the information (and the name!). If you’re still around, do you have any tips about taking care of them? Ours are orange ones; do you think the yellow ones or others are harder to get to bloom? We’ve thought of them as nearly indestructible. Now I read that overwatering can rot the roots. I’ve been watering the bigger blooming one this year since just before it started flowering, and frequently during, hoping it might prolong the bloom. I hope I haven’t messed up the roots.
MomSense
Yesterday I took a really long walk in the woods. I haven’t seen skies so blue since I was a kid.
I’m going to venture out to the feed store today. Hopefully they still have some seeds. Anyone else finding no seeds available for order?
debbie
@chris:
Huh. Your link is the first I’ve seen that doesn’t even mention rubbing alcohol, which I know works but seems kind of harsh. Thanks.
Kattails
@rikyrah: Good morning!
My sorrel is up, not quite big enough to pick, the chives ditto; two parsley plants that got left in are showing signs of life. They’ll bolt quickly but should still get pickable leaves. Teensy tiny self-sown chervil. Must get out and rake off the rest of the beds, I have oak trees & the leaves smother everything and don’t break down well. There are no doubt daffodils and various perennials underneath. Got one spot cleaned off and the daffodils were 6″ high, trying to push through.
I have a two tractor-bucket pile of manure from last fall, dumped by a neighbor with 4 horse/donkey/mules, so that should be nice and mellow by now. I haven’t been able to give my garden much energy in years, so it will be wonderful to be able to get out there. I can’t imagine I’m going back to work in the next few weeks.
Aleta
@Jeffg: Tried to edit … I see you answered my question about the yellow ones.
debbie
@MomSense:
It’s probably safer to assume there’s hoarding than there’s not. I just read this morning that yeast is hard to find because of hoarding.
When the hell will people be running out of space???
opiejeanne
@Nicole: There was a catalpa in a corner of the yard where we lived in the 70s, and it was a bit of a nuisance, shading the little garden patch behind the house and dropping those big beans everywhere. It was not white, though. Ours was lavender and I didn’t know they came in any other color. That was In Riverside, CA.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Auntie Anne: Yes they can, but they alo like being pot bound! If you do divided them be a little careful as they store a lot of their food in their thick roots so try not to break off any more than you absolutely have to.
opiejeanne
@MomSense: I ordered seeds from several different companies earlier this spring, and when I went back to Johnnie’s to ask about a plastic trug with a fitted colander that was back-ordered, I saw a message on their page that due to the Coronavirus they are filling commercial orders right now, and that home gardeners will have to wait.
They didn’t know when the trug would arrive. It was supposed to ship on March 23 but it could take until May to arrive. There’s no rush, we won’t need it until summer.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@sdhays: I have now added that to mybucket list!
WereBear
@debbie: mealybug infestation
I like sprinkling them with flour to dessicate them. Then soapy rinse.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@debbie: 1st – Keep them quarentined! If they are small plants that you can see every nook and cranny of, then you can try the soap spray as reccomended above and then keep a close eye-one them for several months and repeat as necessary.
If you can’t keep them far, far away from other plants, then trow them in the trash!
oldgold
The weegold, by Skype, are requesting that I turn part of the weed patch, West of Eden, into a butterfly haven. And, the motherlode has issued an edict that this shall be done – or else!
Any suggestions for a low initial effort and minimal maintenance plan for making this so?
ziggy
@oldgold: Where are you located?
debbie
@Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!):
Oh, they are in a different room. I’ve been through this before, unfortunately. But I really eyeballed them before buying, so when a couple of days later, I saw a couple of those fluffy things that are their egg sacs on this one, I flipped out and drenched it in rubbing alcohol.
If this persists, I may just take a cutting and start over.
Gin & Tonic
@satby: I had no idea there were that many varieties.
oldgold
@ziggy:
It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call Iowa.
Aleta
@debbie: I can’t find yeast anywhere. Was glad when NotMax reposted a beer bread recipe that replaces the yeast with a beer. Now I just have to find a beer. (‘Ask the neighbors for one,’ was my brain’s automatic thought at first, but then I got realistic about the chances of that. Trading baked goods for anything won’t work now either.)
TomatoQueen
@Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): I’ve ordered happily from cliviausa and have been pleased with the results. Also too would strongly recommend all of the clivia accessories they offer: the power juice, the potting mixes, and the squared off pots, which are otherwise difficult to find.
The things about clivia: once established, they are BIG plants, and are prone to scale and mealybugs, especially if you do as my mother did with hers every summer and take them outside to the shade trees where they could sit and breathe (and attract wildlife) for several months. Clivia need less water and less light than other plants, so can survive owner absence pretty well. They will bloom reliably if they get an autumn/winter chill and dry period–maybe 6 to 8 weeks at 50 degrees and no water, then bring them out again. Once the plant is a full one, though, this is rather hard on the back as they are big and heavy and have large roots, plant pot breakers. And of course, they’re like potato chips, can’t have just one. There are two incredible public garden plantings of them that I know about, one in San Marino near the Huntington Library (Billin will know where), and the other at the US Botanical Garden, as big as a Hummer.
opiejeanne
@Aleta: I used to make beer bread in the 80s, but have lost the recipe since then.
I missed NotMax’s recipe, but the internet is a wondrous thing, where all sorts of knowledge resides.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@oldgold: Flowers in the Aster/daisy/sunflower family! Many annuals are available for immediate gratification. Go for old-fashoined varieties that have somple flowers, not fancy doubles that butterflies can’t get their proboscises into especially in the zinnias and marigolds. If you like big plants look for Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia). For the future you can plant perrenials like Coreposis and asters.
opiejeanne
@TomatoQueen: We have a big clump of clivia next to our driveway, at the street. In California they grow outside, but I was surprised to see them here, just outside Seattle.
Aleta
@MomSense: So far I’ve only found seeds for the easy greens I wanted in the “one pound” and “50 acres” options …
ziggy
@oldgold: That’s too cold for butterfly bush (my first and obvious choice), but the perennials that I would pick would be–Echinacea (coneflower), Sedums (such as ‘Autumn Joy’), Daylilies, Asclepias (butterfly weed), Salvias (such as ‘May Night’), Nepeta (Catmint), Achillea (Yarrow). Those should do well in your zone, and are plants that have done well for me.
NotMax
@opiejeanne
Here ya go.
debbie
@Aleta:
That would work for me, if only I had anything worth trading.
Aleta
@opiejeanne: I copied it. Another commenter was raving about having tried it and how it pleased their (French I think) partner, and how easy it was to make. So NotMax kindly reposted.
NotMax Beer Bread
(del) See his comment #91 above.
(NotMax is also as fast as Hiyo Silver.)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@TomatoQueen: I had to look them up, but yeah they’re pretty popular here in SoCal. Here’s one, and a hummingbird, by the European Gallery at The Huntington.
Daniel'sBob
Google Prairie Moon Nursery and check out their flats of native prairie plants that attract butterflies and other pollinators. They’re available for dry or moist soils. A flat plants about 75 sq.ft.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@TomatoQueen: Good to hear about Cliviausa I’m may ordersomething from them soon. My clivias all go outside for the summer and no scale or mealybugs on them yet.
My potted ferns on the other hand……… I gave up on one staghorn fern last fall and left it outside to die in the cold, after speending 5 or 6 years trying to eliminate the scale on it. :-(
opiejeanne
@NotMax: Thank you kindly. I will make that soon. Tonight is homemade pizza.
NotMax
@Aleta
Pure chance I was ambling by at the right time. :)
Not making this up – there is a family here surnamed Silva who named their three sons:
Sterling
Quick
Hi Ho
.
Elizabelle
Cuomo O’Clock started maybe at 11:06 am? Not sure. Anyway, he has just started taking questions.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Wait! That looks like an agapanthus, Lily of the Nile.
According to one grower, there is no such thing as a blue clivia.
greenergood
West coast of Scotland here: tiny tete-a-tete daffordils are up, brilliant blue ompholoides, blood-red quince blossoms, my bamboo iris has buds, hellebores (lenten rose) have been in bloom for a month. I have a big round mirror resting on the floor of my (tiny) back patio, with a framework for climbing clematis and homeysuckle in front of it. A great tit (look it up – it’s a wee bird) took umbrage at his mirror image and was attacking it, while his mate perched on the patio chair saying ‘Don’t do it! It’s not worth it!’ Eventually Mr Greenergood put some cardboard over the mirror, but left a couple of inches on the edges, and Mr Great T continued to attack until the entire mirror was masked. Sheesh!
Going to plant lettuce/mini-beetroot/radishes, etc in troughs (no real garden space) tomorrow, as the weather is warming up finally!
My Brother and SIL live in Wayne, PA, just five minutes walk from the Chanticleer Garden – it is magnificent, and a great escape when I’m visiting. Here is a YOuTube tour link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPM4VYzYRHU
Happy Spring! (Socially Distant of course …)
Gin & Tonic
@oldgold:
So, since the summit of man’s knowledge is obviously New York City, the pit of his fears would be what, Salt Lake City?
Gin & Tonic
@ziggy: That orange-flowered asclepias grows (and propagates) like crazy here in RI.
Kattails
@Aleta: I have some yeast. I buy it from King Arthur in pound bags, it keeps forever in the fridge or freezer. I’ve got a pint jar left, so could send you some. I haven’t been out for several days and don’t plan on going out again until Wednesday, so packing it should be safe enough.
MomSense
@ziggy:
Great list! I think monarda (bee balm) would also do well.
Nicole
@opiejeanne: That’s so cool. I’ve never known anyone who had one. Very funny to hear that the nuisance of the beans falling is universal. I first read that poem as a teenager (we had to do an English class report on an American poet of our choice and I picked Ciardi at random) and that poem always stuck with me.
Gin & Tonic
@MomSense: Monarda spreads very aggressively, in my experience.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I’m not a very successful gardener but I keep trying things. So here’s what’s going on with my personal projects. My wife has her own (much more luxuriant and successful) projects.
1. I planted carrots and cilantro seeds outside while the nights were still in the mid-30s. That was about a week to 10 days ago. No signs of life. I don’t know if they’re dead, just slow to germinate because of the cold, or eaten by birds. Haven’t quite given up hope yet.
2. Planted (cherry) tomato seeds indoors about the same time. They are doing wonderfully, I have a full crop of little sprouts. I’m dreading the process of transplanting them outside and possibly killing them, and I always hate to do thinning, I always hope I can save everybody.
3. Cut the heck out of the wisteria in early March and bought a nice little iron arbor to train it on, replacing the ugly half-built homemade wooden thing. No signs of new growth yet, but that plant is pretty darned hardy so I think I’m all right there.
4. Cleaning up a lot of ivy, thorns, and miscellaneous vines, representing years of neglect in some places. Got my first case of poison ivy for the season. Thankfully mild.
I have another project I’ve been ignoring. It’s a big oak stump from a tree we had to cut down a few years ago. My wife wants to make it a planter, but it’s so far defeated all my attempts to hollow out. It seems to me I once heard about plants that will grow on stumps with a little bit of compost, that do a good job on decomposing the stump. Any jackals know anything about that?
Jeffg
@Auntie Anne: If it is more than one plant you can split them. They have big thick roots that come apart fairly easily. Might have to run something around the inside of the pot to detach the roots from the side of the pot.
My current orange pot was from a pot with 14 plants in it. That turned into two with five large plants each. The smaller four plant I put in a smaller pot together.
They do like to be crowed. If it is only one plant in the pot you might want to take it out to put new soil in. I have to do that with the yellow clivias this year.
I always plant them in clay pots. They will split a plastic pot eventually as I found out.
Gravenstone
@debbie: If you can apply it with a swab, I doubt the amount of alcohol needed to potentially save your plants would be more than a few milliliters. Not enough to have an impact on your longer term plans with sanitizer.
laura
The allotment tweet was a delightful rabbit hole – that Gardeners World link on how to grow zucchini is something I never considered as being necessary – on the other hand, how to give away your mountain of zucchini could come in handy.
The Orange tree is about to explode in bloom even though the remainders of this years crop are present. The scent of orange blossoms is still somewhat faint – and mostly at twilight, but some time later this week it should be at it’s apex and the tree covered in bees. The scent will carry beyond the yard and will hopefully lift the spirits of neighbors out on their solitary strolls.
The raised bed is still weed free and I’m planning to cover it with sacks of mulch and then plan out the summer garden. Spouse is still disgusted about last years failures-tomatoes, tomatillos and peppers, so it may be just flowers and herbs and some giant hard squashes and that’s okay by me. With the local farmer’s market, it’s hard to justify competing with the abundance up the road.
chris
@Aleta: How do you feel about sourdough? It’ll find its own yeast.
oldgold
@Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!):
@ziggy:
Thank you.
chris
@oldgold: Speedwell (veronica) and Russian sage.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
We just discovered that. Well, I knew about it, but hadn’t actually gotten around to watching it. Now it’s like our daily soap opera, one episode (of the latest season) per day. I don’t think either of us has ever even watched a reality show, let alone gotten addicted to one this way. We’re so bonded with all these characters and dreading when we’ve finished the season and have to say goodbye.
Aleta
@TomatoQueen: Thanks for this.
Our first one spent its first few years here subjected to shocking conditions (not my decision): up against the radiator in my partner’s room, under a heavily curtained window, never watered, gradually covered in dust. As soon as I could I moved it to the only other available spot (uninsulated kitchen floor just above the frozen ground) and gave it some water. It soon burst into bloom. (We were completely taken by surprise.) Since then it has been pushed into corners in any room, and has toughed out a few drought summers abandoned outdoors with no water at all (in shade). It seems to live on some pure essence of a forgiving and generous nature that blooms regardless of what happens to it. Is how I think of it lately.
Daniel'sBob
Moderation–as usual
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
Groan.
MomSense
@Gin & Tonic:
It spreads because it’s in the mint family, but so worth it especially for attracting larger pollinators.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: Just going by teh Google.
WaterGirl
@Daniel’sBob:
Welcome!
WordPress does not like apostrophe’s in nyms. So unlike regular nyms, where we have to approve the first one manually and then subsequent comments go through without intervention…
If you have an apostrophe in your nym, every single comment has to be manually approved.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I know it well, it’s about 20 minutes from us and we’ve been members in the past. Haven’t been there in several years though.
That area is called the “Main Line”, historically a wealthy area where a lot of railroad executives lived and was heavily served by the 19th century trains. A lot of our favorite spots are there.
We live in the much less fashionable southwestern suburbs.
Kattails
@Gin & Tonic: very shallow rooted and easy to pull out though, and the hummers love it, as well as the butterflies.
debbie
@Gravenstone:
Thanks, I’m sure you’re right, but I was in panic mode and so had jettisoned any common sense. At least this will be a learning experience for the next time.
debbie
Asked and answered.
joel hanes
California got insufficient rain in March, and the snowpack is deficient.
Hence, no watering gardens for me this summer except to keep the roses alive.
So no tomatoes.
Jeffg
@Aleta:
@Aleta: If you are getting blooms you are doing something right. I put mine out for the summer in deep shade. They don’t like full sun. During the heat I water them daily if it isn’t raining. I feed them bloom buster fertilizer once a week to encourage buds to develop in January.
The beginning of October I put them in the basement in a room under my south facing front porch off the main basement that is passively heat by the basement. The room has two small windows that let in the weak winter sun. That room stay cold all winter. I am sure it is in the mid thirties in there sometimes.
To flower they need three months of no water plus being below 60 degrees for three months. January first I water them for the first time. The room is so cold I don’t water again until I see the leaves starting to grow. Once a spike just appears I take them upstairs and place them around the living room and dining room. I water them once a week with a weak solution of boom buster fertilizer.
The yellow ones seem to take longer to flower for the first time but after they do flower they tend to flower yearly. One of my yellow plant has skipped a year flowering a few times. It makes up for it the next year with a bigger than usual flower head.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@greenergood: @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Thanks for the link. Chanticleer is a wonderful garden, we used to go almost every year, but it’s now been about three years since we were there. Dan Benarcik is a great gardener and we’ve had a number of friends who have worked there over the years. My favorite part is still the “Ruin Garden”.
MoCA Ace
Garden report from northern WI:
finished cleaning up the yard and fixing the areas where the snowplow gouged chunks out of the yard. The maple syrup season just ended and the tree buds are starting to swell. I put up the hoop-house on the garden yesterday and I will be planting radishes, lettuce and spinach today.
The tomato and pepper starts are about three inches tall… still about 45 days until they can be planted in the garden. Although I may push that a little by moving the hoop house in a few weeks and planting an early tomato or two.
joel hanes
@ziggy:
Iowans should look at the Prairie Moon catalog and plant native perennials that support pollinators. (They have a seed packet specifically for this). For spring planting, it’s recommended to “stratify” the seed, for which they will provide directions.
Monarda is good. So are butterfly weed / butterfly milkweed, marsh milkweed, ironweed, blazing star, vervain …
And if you can get gentians or spiderwort to flourish, they are so blue …
If you have a sunny place for tall plants, Maximilian sunflower is vigorous and will splash with yellow for much of the season.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@joel hanes: Not sure about up north but we got more rain than usual in March; January and February were another story.
joel hanes
@OzarkHillbilly:
I like to buy the half dead plants nobody wants at 25 or 50 cents each and then try to resurrect them
My grandmother employed this exact strategy, and liked to call the survivors “thrifty”.
As those elders who weathered the Great Depression have died out of the population, the word “thrift” and the virtue it denotes have faded.
joel hanes
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It rained overnight here in Silicon Valley, but the pictures last week of the Sierra snowpack were not encouraging.
Dorothy A. Winsor
My kindergarten teacher DIL is driving from house to house today, leaving each of her students material for next week. No contact, of course, but I’ll bet they’re excited to see her even out the window.
OTOH, My son’s employer is still requiring him to come into work where confirmed cases have been found. They’re a defense contractor and are apparently classified as essential. He can’t work from home because his work is classified. I’m angry and worried.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@joel hanes: It rained here a bit overnight as well and is supposed to rain until Thursday. It’s been a dry year, but more due to the lack of ran in January and February.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Not in my yard in Illinois. I don’t recall where you live.
joel hanes
@Nicole:
Thanks for the poem.
That one is going in the permanent collection
Major Major Major Major
Well, I’m off for a long walk to the east village. Wish me luck! Doing a social distance meetup with friends walking there from Williamsburg.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Not to derail the conversation, but is anyone else having internet issues? Our Verizon FIOS seems to fail for a period on almost a daily basis. Today they say they may be out till almost 5 pm. I’m here via smoke signal, Morse code, and tethering through the cell phone.
I assume this is one more place where the infrastructure is just swamped by the unexpected demand, and one more thing (if the structural changes are made) which may be permanently changed when we come out of the other side of this thing.
Aleta
@chris: My family has a sourdough story. My aunt and mother inherited some starter. The story (which a family historian before them had typed out) (ctt of it, I should ask my cousin if she still has a copy) was that that very starter had been continued and passed along since the days of the CA gold rush. (OK, sure, doubtful) I lived several places and in several families as a kid/teen but summers were in the woods in Canada where my family lived outside camping. In those months my mother made sourdough pancakes on a fire every morning (and sourdough bread using a reflector oven). We took canoe trips, and when I was about 14 we were days out on a long one, camping on a point in the rain, sitting by the fire in the dark when a large black bear crossed the granite outcrop in back of us. My parents played it calm: “Yes kids that’s a bear.” Our food had already been suspended, hung up between trees. My mother had started up the sourdough starter as always for the a.m. pancakes, and also to make bread since it seemed like the next day would be a rain layover. It was in a tightly sealed glass jar and she had left it out of the food bags—maybe she forgot it or maybe she always did. Next morning there were signs on the trees of the bear trying but failing to get the food, and no sign of the jar of starter. My mother looked everywhere (within reason, considering the bear). She even had us diving along the shore, saying that the bear might have taken out frustration by throwing it into the lake. Then we had to move on of course (in the rain) because the BEAR. My mother was so upset. No more pancakes, and no more bread which she had counted on to feed us. And we had squandered our inheritance, broken the lineage of the tall-tale starter that had been alive ever since it fed the crusty 49ers.
We did eventually get more from my aunt, who chided my mother for years for her carelessness.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Kind of wish I had torn that page out of the phone book as proof back when they all lived on the island.
joel hanes
@oldgold:
Prairie Moon will sell you a butterfly-garden seed assortment, with directions.
piratedan
desert gardening is a bit different, she who is the final say is considering setting aside a modest area to sow with local wildflowers in order to support the bees, butterfly and local hummingbird populations… what I am not looking forward to is the subsequent allergic explosions that will follow the tilling of the weed infested grounds (and hoping to find no snake dens in doing so) in order to bring the project to fruition… but it beats trimming cholla
Daniel'sBob
Thanks. Didn’t have a problem before the site redo. Haven’t commented since then.
Yutsano
As I am an apartment dweller, no garden for me. However I might break down and get one of those internal hydroponic gardens. A friend swears by his.
scav
First spring leucojum in bloom here in the upper left, same for some bleeding hearts, but mostly the daffs are continuing the parade. As soon as the neighbor completes a third rototill, there will be a gazillion onions to plant. Well, so lond as a gazillion is defined as 100 storage onion sets plus whatever two bunches of little walla wallas turn out to be.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
You’re in midtown (or above)? That’s not a walk, that’s a hike.
;)
Many moons ago worked at an ad agency at (IIRC) 54th & 3rd. Policy was everyone got 2 hours for lunch. Used to traipse all over Manhattan during that allotted time when weather permitted, as I don’t eat lunch. Enough to make the old knees throb now merely remembering it.
NotMax
@Yutsano
Used to have a car I swore by. Vehemently, from all around it.
;)
WaterGirl
@Daniel’sBob: Yeah, there was a point in time on the old site where apostrophe’s worked, and then suddenly they didn’t.
So when we were redoing the site, I painstakingly checked every standard punctuation mark. Two forms of punctuation didn’t/don’t work. One is the apostrophe, and I’ve already forgotten what the other one was!
So it’s not the new site, but some unknown change WordPress made. I have no idea what, why, or how
P.S. Then Welcome back, not Welcome!
Uncle Cosmo
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: The best-known flower displays in the Baltimore area are in Sherwood Gardens, a private community park in the historic Guilford district of northern Baltimore City. You can read the history and page through a gallery at the link.
Sherwood Gardens was one of our annual spring Sunday destinations when I was a kid – so far away from our house in SE Baltimore County that it might as well have been on Mars. Now I live within 20 minutes’ walk (in a much less hoity-toity neigborhood).
It appears to remain open to the public, but special events have been cancelled, large gatherings are a no-no, and everyone is expected to practice social distancing. O tempura! O morays!
oldgold
@joel hanes:
“Directions!”
I once read some back in Ike’s second term – “How to place tin foil on rabbit ears.” That worked out reasonably well; so, I guess, I could; particularly given, I am under the Motherlode’s “or else” edict.
Thanks.
WaterGirl
@Aleta: What an terrific story!
chris
@Aleta: Thanks, that’s a great story! Maybe it’s time to start a new tradition?
NotMax
A garden which is on the bucket list. Open to the public but one day per year (although 2020’s date canceled.)
JAM
I usually buy my veg plants at a local organic nursery because the plants always grow so well. Probably because they raise the plants here and harvest their own seeds. Anyway, this year they are changing from a cash business to online ordering and paying with curbside pickup. I was worried they would be forced to close this year, so that’s a relief.
It’s still too cold to plant tomatoes here (OK), I usually plant around the last week of April–I need to wait anyway because I seem to have coronavirus right now. Hoping I can get tested next week, but who knows.
MoCA Ace
@Aleta: Great story. I have made a few week-long canoe trips including two to Canada. It offers the solitude I used to crave… does anyone still crave solitude? One of my main reasons for shedding pounds and getting in shape is to take my grandsons on some of those trips.
MoCA Ace
I love vegetable gardening but barely have the time for it and never had the time to tend flowers. I have a “flower bed” in a rock retaining wall on the west side of the house that supports nothing more than weeds. This year I’m ripping it all up and making it my pepper bed!
Back to the yard work.
Gvg
@debbie: try a bit of cooking oil, dawn dish detergent and water and spritz them all over keep out of hot direct sunlight till the bugs look dead. Then rinse them off and treat normally. Don’t get the soil too wet since they are succulents. You may have to re treat in 10 days because of eggs hatching out. Normally i’d Use horticultural oil, but we’re all avoiding stores and I have used cooking oil in a pinch before.
Its for suffocating the bugs. Soap is to help the oil and water mix. Water is to thin it so you can spray it. Oil does the work. Soap is bad for bugs too. Sometimes just soapy water gets soft bodies bugs.
Kattails
since I’ve seen this on here a couple of times lately, I just went downstairs and quickly made a sponge of just 1 1/2 tsp. yeast and a cup each of flour and water, plus a pinch of sugar. Wanted to check that the yeast was still active. (It’s SAF red instant, from King Arthur.) That was maybe 11:30, after I saw Aleta’s note. Have a nice bubbly sponge going now.
3 1/2 Tbsp. is about an ounce. It’s just me here and I use the minimum to get bread going, so I really could pack up 2- 3 Tbsp. for a few people, I have some small glassine envelopes or use wax paper etc. Can check w/ the PO tomorrow as to whether it could go in just a regular envelope. Trying to be a good girl and get some desk work done but will check back.
WaterGirl
@JAM: I always buy my pepper and tomato seedlings from the organic guy at our farmer’s market.
The weekly farmer’s market may not be happening this year – they are still trying to decide.
So i called the organic farm and they confirmed that one way or another, they will have their seedling plant for sale this year. What a relief!
Feathers
@debbie: In the case of yeast, I don’t think it’s hoarding really, just lots more people than usual deciding to bake bread. My Instagram feed is full of “my first loaf of bread” shots. My problem is that in my last shopping trip I somehow ended up with two bags of sugar and no flour. So I am finishing up the flour I have on hand and am hoping that there is more when I go out.
NotMax
@Kattails
I get the SAF red label one pound brick pack (or else a different brand, depending on what they bring in) at a local open to the general public store which caters to the restaurant and hotel trade. Just checked dry yeast on Amazon. There’s some available, but WOW! have the prices shot into the stratosphere.
JAM
@WaterGirl: I know, isn’t it–I was so worried because my nursery’s website disappeared, but it was because they got a new one that allowed for online ordering.
Also, unrelated, Autumn Sage! I heartily recommend this plant. It’s named that because it blooms late into autumn, but I planted one last May and it started blooming a few weeks ago, right after the daffodils. It bloomed all summer until November last year as well.
Feathers
One note on basil growing. Not doing it currently, but I had good luck with the baby basil method. Basically get a pot with a wider mouth, sow lots of seeds, harvesting the basil when it’s a few leaves big, sow some more seeds. Once you’ve got it going, you’ve got everlasting basil. There was some sort of basil pest in my neighborhood that killed off everything before it got big enough to officially harvest, so I turned to this indoor method.
scav
Another thing on the yeast issue. The overnight no-knead bread recipes can use as little as 1/2 to 1/4 teaspoon for a two loaf recipe (they’ve got the time to grow enough overnight). That will definitely stretch your reserves as a package of yeast is 2 1/4 tsp.
debbie
@Feathers:
I follow a FB group of America’s Test Kitchen fans which is where I heard about the shortage. There are many photos of loaves of bread, many lamentations about empty flour shelves at the market, and then photos when they are able score a bag of flour. You’d think it was a photo of their first born!
debbie
@Gvg:
Thanks!
Aleta
@chris: I copied your recipe link… would also be nice to find some from someone. With my mother’s, it got better the more you used it. The pancakes were the best pancakes.
Aleta
@NotMax: Away! for their daughter …
Aleta
@Kattails: I’m interested, and could send you something back in return. If you decide to do it, you can ask AL for my email… If not easy, or time right now gets tight, I understand completely.
Kattails
@Aleta: Nothing needed in return, thanks, I just want to check with the post office; can’t imagine it would be a problem to mail and if it goes in a flat envelope, it wouldn’t cost anything either. I’ll check back with you in a day or two. Anyway, I owe you, your trick for linking to other sites worked great, I screen-shot it and parked it on my desktop.
WaterGirl
@Kattails: I mailed 3 packets of yeast to Major Major last week. Put it in a business size envelope and added 5 stamps just to be safe. Didn’t even have to go into the post office.