Hi Ilene, Thanks a lot for bringing up the issue of cold stratification. I didn't even think about mentioning it. I usually just cold-stratify by refrigerating seeds right in their packet, although I will put the seed packet in a zip lock bag with a little packet of silica so that the refrigerator's humidity doesn't have an adverse affect on the seeds. I know that winter sowing is wonderful and works for many people, but I don't do a lot of it here. I have a lot of critters, including raccoons and possums, that will destroy any plastic container I have to get to the little green shoots inside. Raccoons have a remarkable ability to open just about anything. The cats, too, think any container of soil is intended just for them, and they go to great lengths to remove the tops of containers too. If I could keep the winter-sown plants safe from all the critters, I'd do more winter sowing. I only direct sow some flowers, as you mentioned, and that includes poppies, larkspur, and drummondii phlox. With poppies, I just scatter seeds on any bare spot of ground (including brick-hard red clay and gravelly edges of the driveway), water with a spray bottle or watering can in the absence of rain, and I get poppies. They seem to sprout better in semi-dry years. In wet years, I don't get as many. At our house, the poppies seem to prefer to sprout in the middle of the gravel driveway, but then I just dig them up while they are tiny and put them wherever I want them. Cabbage needs to mature in the fall before it is regularly exposed to temperatures in the 40s, so my guess is that the nights got too cold before the heads had fully formed. Stress, in the form of too hot/too cold, too wet/too dry also can interfere with cabbage's growth, as can soil that is too acidic. You'll get the best quality cabbage heads if they mature while temperatures are 60-65 during the day. Next fall, try planting (either seeds or transplants) about 12 weeks before your "average first fall freeze" and your cabbage should be able to mature before the cold arrives. Fall-planted cabbage matures much more slowly than spring-planted cabbage, and I think it is the warmer days that keep it from maturing as fast. Cabbage will store for months, you know. It is hard to say what caused the hollow stems, but it likely was excess soil fertility. This is an issue more often with broccoli but sometimes you see it in cabbage as well. If you had left the root sytem/stump of the cabbage plant in the ground, it is likely it would have rebounded in the spring. Because the plant is a biennial, it most likely would have sprouted small heads from the stumps and you could have harvested those small heads at any time prior to the emergence of a seedstalk. Cabbage is one of the few crops that can give you a fall crop/early spring crop in that manner. Last year, just for fun (and partially to appease the "wild things" that simply MUST have something in the garden to eat in spring), I planted a row of ornamental cabbage in between two rows of tomato plants. I never paid much attention to the ornamental cabbage and, even afer I stopped watering when the drought drove our water bill sky-high, the cabbage kept growing. It is STILL out there, and still growing, although the heads are pretty small. The stems, however, are about 3 feet tall. The plants look odd, and I am about to remove them in order to prepare that bed for this year's corn planting, but I am sort of amazed the plants have been out there for a year. With your walking stick cabbage, you could stake it loosely and I have seen some of them survive for a long, long time even though the wind whips them around quite a bit at times. I'm not aware of cabbage being used as a companion plant for tomatoes, although I did use it myself last year as an ornamental to accompany the tomatoes last year. Mine, however, was just planted to give the rabbits something else to eat so they'd leave the tomato plants alone. I looked up cabbage in Louise Riotte's book CARROTS LOVE TOMATOES and it says that cabbages 'dislike' tomatoes. Well, they didn't seem to hurt mine. LOL Most of the common foliar issues that occur with tomatoes in Oklahoma are fungal or bacterial in nature and can be seed-borne (it just figures!), soil-borne, air-borne and water-borne, so there isn't much you can do to prevent them. You can try solarizing your beds by covering them with plastic all winter long. The only way to really combat these foliar diseases naturally is to mulch heavily under the plants to reduce soil splash which carries soil-borne diseases up onto the leaves, water only by soaker hose or drip line or the Texas Pot Method to reduce soil splash, and spray your tomato plants every 7-10 days with cholorothalonil (Daconil). If you use Daconil, it essentially coats the leaves and stems and helps prevent fungi and bacteria from attaching to the foliage. It WILL NOT prevent all diseases, but it buys you time and helps keep the plants going a few more days to a few more weeks. I haven't used Daconil in 10 or 15 years, but it is tempting. A couple of years when Early Blight arrived very early, I've been tempted to use Daconil, but talk myself out of it every time. One year I used Serenade and it seemed to help reduce early blight and I was very excited about that. The next year, though, it didn't seem as effective. I have had success in greatly reducing bacterial speck, bacterial spot and early blight with careful mulching and watering. The problem, though, is that EB can develop if leaves have moisture on them for as little as 15 minutes, so dew and rainfall are going to give it a chance to get started on your plants despite your best efforts to keep irrigation off the plant foliage If I am to be totally honest, I'd have to say that the ONLY way to successfully combat Early Blight is to spray your plants with Daconil on a 7-10 day schedule from day 1, but even that won't prevent all early blight although it will minimize it. I've linked the Oklahoma Mesonet below. On the left hand side, just click on the phrase soil temperature and it will bring up the current soil temp on the map in the center of the page. It also will give you an extensive soil temperature menu on the right-hand side of the page. You can click on all the different options to see soil temps at various depths, and to see averages for diferent time frames. Just click on what you want to see. I like to check soil temp in the early morning, before sunrise, because then I know how "cold" the soil is getting at night and then I like to check it in late afternoon to see how "hot" it is getting. Remember, too, that you can use an ordinary meat thermometer to check your own soil temps. This winter, by the way, we've had some of the warmest soil temps I've seen in the winter months since moving here. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma Mesonet

Actually I use a wipe off calendar and it works well for me. Appts, etc are kept in my electronic gadget PDA? and before I was given this thing I had a paper calendar book that I carried in my purse. The wipe on/off calendar is so the family knows what's going on on any given day. My calendar board actually has 7 lines and I simply roll the months. As one week finishs I wipe and put the next week from the bottom in it's place - does that make sense? I had those plastic rubber things - like the decorations for windows, with the calendar month names that I would stick at the beginning of the month. If my DH or DDs/DS has something going on they add it to the board and then I add it to my PDA. That way I know what's going on with everyone. But it's an added visual each morning on what's going on for the day. I've been doing this since forever. I use a small one now but when the kids were little it was quite large - so the kids had space to write. A paper calendar never had enough room. But we also listed chores etc on the calendar. Oh and everything was color coded, each one of us was a different color.

Sue, I use a small (4x6" or so) spiral academic calendar (2 pages per week, starts in July and runs through the school year) that fits in my purse so it is always with me. It's probably my single greatest tool. Since I was the only one in the family who actually looked at the old wall calendar (everyone else, for example, just looks at the football schedule instead) it made the most sense for me to keep my own calendar that would be with me at all times (we're hardly ever home). I'm a "visual" person and have no interest in a PDA where you can't read the whole week at a time. I *like* to flip through paper pages! LOL I also have trouble reading tiny fonts. Here is how my calendar was beneficial yesterday: 1. I had to call from my office and make DS a dentist appt. If I used a wall calendar, it wouldn't have been with me to check for conflicts. (I actually tried carrying around a wall calendar for a while once, ROFL). 2. Someone wanted me to go to the high school Booster Club meeting next Monday. Nope-won't work, I already have something scheduled next Monday. I didn't have to say "I'll call and let you know" because I had an immediate answer. 3. I need to shop for birthday presents. I called my niece to see what the kids needed, and wrote that in the planner (when I go shopping, the list will be with me). When we received the 2006-7 school calendar this month, everything was copied over--that's the advantage of an academic calendar... I don't have to do it over in January! My daily to-do list of errands is on the front of the book on a post-it note so I don't forget anything in the rush home from work. There is an address book section in the back where I put all the numbers I need.

FANTASTIC tips, Joann! (Loved the sock item--that's exactly the kind of thing that gets shoved to the corner of your mind and gets remembered only when you're standing in that school auditorium/gym the next year!) The calendar function on my Mac has really helped me keep track of bill-paying, appointments, due dates for library books (with spaces for noting a new title I need to get when I go back to the library) and so many other daily-life tasks. And you don't need an "electronic calculator," as has been noted (oops, pun not intended!). IMHO, what you DON'T want to do is have a series of reminders. How many lists on little pieces of paper do you have now? Unless you really have a severe memory problem, it's a time waster to have one calendar you go to for the basics but one that forces you to look at ANOTHER piece of paper or computer site to get all the details. A second or third day planner or notebook is just one more thing you can misplace. One alternative to a computer calendar and a paper notepad in your pocket is your cellphone. Even the basic cheapie phone that I have (it's not a smartphone) has a reminder alarm component. You can set a series of alarm clock settings for tasks, like "dr. appt" at 11 a.m. and "buy bananas" and prioritize them as well. I've used the phone to remind me of the next drug-dosage times, very handy when you have a cold and want to get some sleep but then wake up wondering how long it's been since you took your last dose of Nyquil!