Glad everyone's seeds are doing well. You guys are welcome! Sorry for the short post (on Vacation in Vegas) I get back next week and I'll share some updates.

Have fun in Vegas!!! Win lots!

AllRight !!! Casino ...

Here is something that self sowed , from last season ,, Explains why from my seeds at least the ruffles grew ,,
little purple or ruffled Basil , not as ruffled as some , self sowed though ,, can't beat that , at least for seeds being viable ...
Not always true from seeds , Maybe one that does now ,



point being ,, usually this

Bloom ,,

Beautiful, Jim. What is that?

Gaw-jus, just gorgeous.

DnD . it is a poppy from the seeds ,with Lupine , both planted right as when I receved the seeds from the swap . (yours DnD ,, A BIG , thank you hostess

apologies at this second , that I do not remember who , ? But I love you who ,? as to the trade offer ,

First nice poppy to grow for me here in decades ,

Hi Rick and thank you also ,,

Has to be the Corn poppy from Elena .. Elena Thank you !!! Blooms aren't double .. but the foliage sure is ,, Double ruffled blue tone foliage , large red bloom

You're welcome Jim! I haven't grown those myself yet so I had no idea what they would look like. Very pretty! I was hoping some poppies would self seed for me this year but no luck. Hope yours do!

I just saw two yellow California poppies fight their way past the weeds and emerge! I thought they had given up two years ago.

I wish the 'Mikado' CA poppies would last that well.
Nice "flame-like" red-orange colors.

Elena The only sel sow here are the greens like Radish , Kale , Mustard , all self sow as a wanted edible , Flowers , not many ,,

Rick I have had a few California poppies , They fail most often , Not easy here , I have a Oriental red Poppy but it is slow to happen , nice foliage , no bloom ,

I also have that red snapdragon over a ft tall , it violet tinge , but not red leaves , so it is not my seeds , has to be one from the swap ,, lots of buds so far , still waiting to see it bloom ,,

oh I do have this that self sowed from last season , not vigorously , a ruffled Basil or perilla , I will get to that difference in a while
Same as above ,,

Truthfully , I love self sow blooms of any kind , to many Thistle ,? i use them for mulch ,

Thought you might be interested , here is the Red snapdragon A little over a foot tall , in a milk jug pot ,




Here is what I was talking about with the poppy ,, bloom on a nearly 4 f plant , two smaller ones (which is what usually happens ) barely a foot tall Color variance is well defined in the photo ,,

Jim, did you get snapdragon Night & Day from me in the swap? That variety has scarlet & cream flowers.

I have not been impressed with my snapdragon Twinny Yellow. Normally my snaps start blooming early Spring & keep on until frost. This variety has just started to bloom.



I planted it right next to my pansy Delta Pure Lemon.

Yes ,, Elena ,, and a little off that could be that ,,leaves did not stay red , but have a bunch of violet in them ,
Cream yellow center ,,
While my photo is not that good ,, that cream yellow tongue on one of the blooms is huge ,
The tag is under it , in the pot , and I have not and am not going to dig it out , unless or until I put it in the ground this fall .

I think yours are pretty , and as you said not impressive to you , that is difficult to accomplish with smaller plants and flowers ,
A bunch of the smaller flowers , simply and plainly do not keep the colorform they should have .

I am hoping July and august bring me more blooms here , real slow and fewer for me this season ,

I'm finding the same thing Jim. Everything seems to be growing slower and producing fewer flowers this year for some reason. It's been an ok Spring so I don't get it. But I just bought some fertilizer to hopefully jump start the plants!

Elena That is a night and day Snapdragon , I went and looked through the bottom and the photo's online are a spot on match , Mine do not look that good though ..

I get a lot of this as seeds sprouting late , and such ,,
This photo of wintersown tomatoes ,, a couple zinnia started recently , and a plant seedling in the back is ??? it is what happens when your sure some seeds are not going to grow , poof .. their there really late ,, My cinnamon Basil are just now sprouting , at random .

Wow! Everyone, all of it looks great! And some of it is making me hungry, lol. Must be lunch time. At any rate, I can't believe it's taken me this long to get back here. I am usually up at 7am, in the garden by 7:30 and out by 8:30 pm. Long days. We have managed to build 12 gardens this year. I didn't think it would get done, but it did. Then we had one rain. One rain. It took out tons for me. I know I watched at least 10 bags of mulch float down the drainage system. That doesn't even include plants it took with it. Nor does it include what my husband killed with weed killer. I finally threw the biggest adult fit I've thrown in my life when he took out the Queen Red Limes that were beginning to bud. Uggh. What is wrong with this man? Two times this year he's taken out some of my fav plants I traded for. It took so long just to get them started! And they were ws'd and I had waited so patiently for them. But I did manage to resow or replace plants that would be too late to sow. The rest will just have to wait until fall to sow. Below is a couple of pics of what happened.



My front porch. Yep, that's some of my ws'd and ds'd plants floating away.... I was going to plant them the day before. I ran out of daylight.


This is my side door. See that water gushing through my beds? This all happened in 5 minutes time. It was all gone. I've spend the last 2 weeks repairing damage. Luckily, the dwarf black velvet nasturtiums Cheryl gave me are still there.


Sorry about the bad pic. I just wanted ya'll to see what I dealt with the entire summer before. Last year I did this on a daily basis. Pouring rain, wait for it to stop, go out and repair what I could for the next rainfall. If you look to the right in this picture, you can actually see the water white capping in the drainage ditch. That ditch is 4 foot tall.

But, I will say this. I have enjoyed my season so far. I've really loved seeing the things I've gotten from ya'll come on up and try to grow. And honestly, I'm really excited to see some of the same plants i've gotten to grow from ya'll and your plants from the same batch of seeds. Very interesting.

This year has been an odd year for flowering. Everything mostly comes up and leafs out. Then I get this sweet little bud. Then I get a flower whose color is not what it is supposed to be. Very weird. For me though, even the different colors seem to go with everything I have so I can't complain. I have watched a rose colored coneflower I have (noid) that I bought at the nursery last year. Reputable nursery at that. The buds are blooming now. The first one came up an odd colored pink. It soon faded into the color it should have been. Now? It's blooming a neon orange! I won't lie, how in the world is this going to take on a rose color? My petunias from my neighbor? I love them. The red ones actually do come out this magnificent black/red. I almost think they are even deeper in color this year than they were last year. Best petunia I've ever had. I'll always keep seed of this one.
The deep black purple ones? Lol. I'd be lucky to get purple out of those. A color range of neon pink to deep magenta with a couple of purple ones in there. But the purple is not deep and dark. Don't know if it will change. It's really that way with alot of my flowers. I had bought some dark purple and magenta, frilly, velvety petunias to go in my diamond shaped corner. The colors? deep purple, deep magenta, deep pink, deep red. Just really odd.


Odd colored coneflower.

Jimard, I managed to save one of the purple ruffles basil from you. That bad rain took the other one downstream. :(



But on the bright side Jim, I have Black Prince snaps that are gorgeous and starting to bud now... I did end up moving 3 salvias out of the planter. I looked at it one day and just saw a different way of showing them off so out came the three salvias. I left 2 in there.



For the most part, anything I ws'd that made it has not started blooming. Only calendulas are blooming from that group and the petunias from the neighbor. Everything else I am still waiting on.

Elena, I am the one who got the night and day snaps. When Chuck took out my Queen Red Limes, he also took out a petunia and some snaps. I had nothing to replace that set. I had these sweet little snaps that I had no place for. Until then, lol. They've yet to bloom so I really have no idea what they will look like. I'll snap a pic when they do. It may be August before I see anything though. I do have some frosted sunset snaps from you and only one of the three that made it has a bud on it. I'm hoping this week it comes alive. If so, I'll take a pic so you can see how it turned out.

And lastly, this is why I garden. It is hands down my favorite part of vegetable gardening and this year I'm looking forward to it like no other. For the first time, I have help canning. And twice as much! I harvested the first flush of 3 rows of green beans. I managed 22 quarts. Yay! We're eating green beans this year!



I really do hope everyone else's things are coming out well. I really have enjoyed this year like no other. I have people who stop on the street just to tell me how nice my gardens are. I could not have done this without ya'll's help. It has made every trade, every ws project that didn't turn out, every rainfall that flushed what I did manage, worth it. Thanks ya'll. You all made me very happy this year.

Oh my goodness Karen I can't imagine having flooding like that! My house is on a hill so even when we get waterfalls (& have to sweep water out the front door) it doesn't wash my garden away. I'd be devastated!

I'm happy to see that your veggie garden is doing well! So far I've only harvested lettuce, kale & spinach. The tomatoes & melons just got planted.

Have you thought about retaining walls or seriously raised beds (2-3 feet tall)? A terraced garden perhaps? I just don't know how I'd cope with that much water. That just seems like an impossible situation. I do hope at least some of the flowers bloom well for you. Not sure what is up with the color changing plants but if the flood water changed the pH of your soil that might explain some of it.

I have seen water doing that , When it happens here it does not wash through , it sets 3 or four feet deep and drowns everything ,

Karen , well some of them rooted in and stayed , every little victory , a glorious triumph ,
If that group of salvia and Snapdragons blooms it should be Wonderful !!!
Most of my plants are really small

Sometimes old fshioned green beans has been all I could grow ,, good thing their a favorite ,,

Nitrogen and mneral oxides in run off will cause that color bloom change ,, Clay is full of mineral oxides of every kind ,,

Not from trade but my biggest crop so far , Milkweeds

Bx, last year was devastating for me. I just couldn't win, lol. This year, a little better. Today was our last rain and thankfully yesterday and today was not a killer. I do hate these rains in the spring though. I have to try and get the plants large enough to plant so that when they come, they've already latched on. Sometimes, no matter what, it doesn't help.

This year I have made raised beds where I could. At some point I will update my little thread and you can see all the work I've gotten done. My dil and I hauled every bit of rock onto this property ourselves. We went and dug them up, loaded them, brought them home, unloaded and lined the beds. We spend march, april and may doing that. The sad part is, even with the raised beds, I've lost some because the water gets so high. But not near what it would have been had I not done that. When I built the beds, I had my hubby til the top layer, then I lined them, then I had my son take dirt from vegetable garden and put it in my beds. We raised those as well. The rain took it out. Sigh. But, on the other hand, it's been a learning curve this year. Next year I will build them higher and see how it goes. 2 feet is just not enough in some spots here.

Jimard, because I have the retaining wall in my yard, everything does flush down here. And the wall holds all the water in the ground. When it rains, my yard can only take so much after these onslaughts. I had great green beans this year. I managed to get my first harvest before this latest rain hit. Now, because my ground is finally out of dry dirt, I've lost the green beans. No second flush. They are now sitting in a lake. By thursday I should be able to get in there and just go ahead and pull them. I'll probably plant limas in their place. I did manage to get 23 quarts out of it though. I'm happy.

Jimard, I still have some small ws'd seedlings. After 4 months, they are still no taller than 4". This week, sun. They should go to town. Hang in there. It's just the odd weather this year. They'll come on and you'll be so happy you hung in there with them.

Karen The only thing looking correct as it should here , Are two Tomato plants , and a couple of zinnia ,

This Artemisia Glaucus is taking over ,, This thing is about 4 ft by 4 ft ,, my


how the weeds grow ..