Ah, nothing to get you through the cold days of January like browsing a seed catalog and pretending you, too, can grow plants that look like the ones in the pictures.

So, to get some warm weather discussion going, which catalogs do you prefer? Classics like "Burpee's." Market gardener like "Johnny's Seeds?"

What plants do you want to attempt this year you have never managed to grow successfully? I keep wanting to try Love-Lies-Bleeding again, if I can ever clean out a flower bed for it. Even my hollyhocks are being done in by the $#)@* bindweed.

My daffodils are two inches out of the ground but you can hardly see them with the snow we're getting.

I'm planning a big gardening project this spring. Any tips on getting rid of the "bind weed"?

Nuclear explosives? If I had a solution, I would have a decent garden. I know it laughs at Round-Up. Really. You can hear the roots chuckling down in the dirt as you spray.

Okay, maybe not that bad, but it is resistant to removal short of a bomb.

Paraquat + diesel fuel = dead Convolvulus arvensis

Yes, but can you plant tomatoes afterwards?

What plants do you want to attempt this year you have never managed to grow successfully?

Willie Nelson

Banvel Herbicide applied in the fall

When is the best time to plant? Coming here from the mountains, it was a risk planting prior to July 4!

If we get through the spring and summer without a drought here in Texas, maybe my garden and my husband's citrus will survive. We got two beautiful and tasty oranges a couple weeks ago. The deer (we live in the forest it seems on a now nearly dry lake) ate all my okra, tomatoes, herbs, limes and lemons. Actually, if we get through the summer and fall without a repeat of the early September 2011 Tri-County fire in Waller, Montgomery, and Grimes Counties which required us to evacuate for 10 days we will be happy. I think I am not gonna even worry about a garden this year!

Even though I haven't bought anything from a seed catalog in years, I still recieve Gurney's very year. All those lush but unrealistic pictures help beat the post-holiday blues.

If your new to the area, here is some data from the extension services....it gives you somewhat of a time line for freeze/thaw by county~
http://www.mtmastergardener.org/oldGG/mtclimate.asp

Miles City has the longest growing season in the state as well, so depending on where you are coming from, that is good news for gardening!

http://www.mtmastergarden...limate.asp

Anytime after May 15 is pretty safe! The daring with well-protected gardens put on hardy plants even earlier. However, tomatoes and peppers sulk if the weather is too cool and corn rots.

According to my mother, potatoes MUST be planted on good Friday, on an empty stomach (fasting... slowing if you ask me) before you go to church.

My father said this, too. He never planted potatoes. I remember in Belgrade one year, a friend tried to plant his Good Friday potatoes and the ground was frozen so hard, he couldn't dig a hole with a pickaxe. May work in Ireland but not western Montana.