A simple answer "NO"!! First off the neighbor is actually my parents neighbor, I have known her since I was a baby. With that said there is a major difference in walking on someones property that you do not know, and taking seeds from someone you have known all of your life. Where I live now there is a neighbor of mine and she is always out in her flower beds. I have waived to this woman, tried to talk to her. One time I did talk to her and that is cause she came to my house to ask a favor (she is an elderly woman that lives by herself) I quickly obliged to help her. I would not dare walk on her property much less take seeds from her plants. Believe me she has a beautiful blue spider wort I would love to get seeds from also. I personally think that each situation is totally different. If I do not know you and know that you will not get mad, I am not going on your property. A farmer is the only exception here, they do not want those flowers, if they did they wouldn't be killing them. Do I dig up flowers?? NO!! Also I would never go to the store with the intention of collecting seeds from plants, but if I was just looking at the plants and I saw some that had seeds. Yes I may consider pocketing some, not all but a few. I use to work in a nursery, and believe me I collected the seeds. The owners laughed at me, they thought I was stupid. They actually told me that, they said go ahead collect all that you want but they will never come true. Like ha ha you idiot, well I just went ahead and collected my seeds. Thinking the entire time you guys are the idiots, and ya own the nursery, ha ha ha. This spring I will take some pictures of before and after the farmers and the county spray. Yeah our county sprays also, lol. Maybe that will help you to understand where I am coming from, when you see beautiful natural rose bushes, hibiscus, foam flower, black eyed susans, virginia creeper, mulberry tree's, all on the roadside one day. Then a few days later you see the horrible destruction these trucks have with their herbicides and and also just there shear size of the truck. Maybe that will help you to understand a little more. I understand that no one can totally understand if they themselves have never witnessed it. It will break your heart, I promise!!

Iowa Praires presented in Watercolor really tells it all. Check out the book: The Elemental Prairie Sixty Tallgrass Plants Watercolors by George Olson Essay by John Madson This is truly the best portrait of Iowa gone by. I recently had the honor of going to a presentation by George Olson. I've been working on a small praire on my back acreage. I plan on expanding to my road ditches. This was a very good time to bring this to light Ironbelly. Very Well spoken. Whoops writen I mean.

Was in Guymon last evening and my pu just turned in at Wally World as I was leaving. So being I was in the parking lot went in to see what they had put out over the last week. Almost everything was out inside the store now. Just a few bulbs though and didn't see any seed potatoes. They had a lot of boxes stored just outside the doors in the outside area. I didn't go out to see what was there. This year they have a large Ferry-Morse seed display and a fair sized display with organic seeds from Seeds of Change. The FM seeds were very reasonable. Not sure if someone put the wrong price on the SoC seeds or not. They showed $5.49 a pack. Which I consider very high. Didn't buy anything but looked through both racks. They had all of the usual potting and seed starting mixes and supplies out. Last week they had a sale on plastic containers which I bought a few of and using as flats for onions, leeks, ect and wanted to buy a few more buty they were all gone and the area full of garden/lawn/Bar-B-Q items. Just 2 years ago I couldn't find any seed starting mix or potting mix anywhere before Feb 1st. So since I've kept at least a partial bag and some potting soil for insurance and both years the stores have had it out in mid Jan. More geese have moved in from the south over the last week. Notice a few more flocks moving north during the week. Everyone that is talking about it says it is due to little water and food south of here. They say the ducks/geese that use this fly way can go clear to the Mexico border and not find many water/food combinations. So not sure if them moving north is a good indicator of an early spring or just an indicator of hungry birds. I would say the numbers here have climbed to over a thousand now. The wheat is growing and some fields that they didn't even cut must have a little grain down on the ground as I've been watching them feed in them. They don't stay out feeding over an hour which indicates they are getting plenty to eat without a lot of work. Which somewhat surprises me. My two youngest apple trees just lost the last of their leaves a week ago and are showing signs of the buds growing now. The older one has buds I'm afraid won't wait long enough to bloom out from the way they look. I remember in the late 80's a winter like this. The last day of Jan it started raining. And then turned to ice and snow. Then the cold set in for around 2 weeks. Hope that isn't the case this winter. I keep telling everyone not to store their coats away yet. The good thing is the longer we go without a severe cold spell the less likely we are to have a prolonged extreme cold spell. But I've seen really cold weather through the 15th of Feb so not getting in too big of hurry starting too many seeds yet. Jay

Hey there Anthony! Well, we know dem maters need light, food, water and warmth. You've done this before, so I'm pretty sure water isn't a problem. The jiffy peats are good enough to grow a seedling without any ferts. You say they are in a good amount of sun. My only guess would be perhaps they are too cold? The soil needs to be warm enough for them to want to grow. I might stick a warming mat under them and see what they do. Only other guess is a bad batch of Jiffy pellets. Though I've never heard of this happening. Anyways, good luck with your grow, and I hope someone with more knowledge than I can pop in here and help you out. chris