Sorry to hear about Miz Anne George. DH has been off sick with cold/flu. Very unusual for him to miss work. Will you share with us how you're gonna check those soil temps.:-) Penny in Halifax, N.S. where we had freezing rain followed by an inch or 2 of snow, but it'll melt in a couple of days >>> George Shirley <gshirley@laol.net> 02/06 1:27 pm >>> Sorta of a misty, overcast day with temps in the mid-seventies today. Went out early and dug the rest of the jicama. Got about 3 that were worth saving, the others, very large, were rotting already. Think I've learned that I will have to harvest and eat the jicama while the vines are still green and healthy as they start to rot as soon as the vines get frost-bitten. Will have a nice mess of jicama along with chard, carrots, broccoli buds, cauliflower, mesclun and other greens for dinner tonight. Yesterday I made a hearty soup with dried NZ spinach, dried beans, ground beef, Jerusalem artichokes, oregano, carrots, etc. Miz Anne has been feeling poorly with yet another sinus infection. By evening yesterday she had enough antibiotics in her to get up and stir around a bit. The soup helped break up the congestion and today she is partially recovered. Enough so that she is in the studio cutting mat board for some of her watercolors. I finally got around to potting the Tumbler tomatoes today. Put them in hanging basket with potting soil mix and a little long-term fertilizer. The blasted things were the first tom seeds to come up and grew six inches between January 22nd and today. I put four seedlings in one hanging basket, three in another, and the last had two. Looks like I had 100% germination on these as that's how many seeds were in each peat pot. Nearly all of my seedlings are up and growing under the lights so we're happy. If the warm weather continues, as the weatherman says it will, we will be planting the main garden as soon as soil temps reach 70F. A good day even if overcast and dreary, life is indeed good. George