I'd cut them back if they look bad; you have almost nothing to lose. If they are common rudbeckia, it won't hurt them. Whether they rebloom or not depends on the weather and the amount of water they get; if we have a nice long fall season, you'll get another batch of flowers. If there's a sudden end of summer, you might not get any more out of these plants. The bottom line is that if they look bad now, you should cut them back. If they look ok, you might not want to take a chance. I agree that that's a good book; I don't have it but it's on my list, so I can learn in more detail what I should or would be doing if I had the time. No chance I'll do what she says, but it's nice to be able to be specific about our shortcomings. Meanwhile, we're here to try to answer questions from people who don't have the book.

Patty... Please post back when you try planting them in the spring, I'd really like to know how your seeds saved from the green pods do. I looked every day up until frost got mine & never could find any like the picture Gypsea posted & really wanted to save some seed. I'd love to have some seed if anyone has any spare seed, can sasbe or offer something in trade. This is my first year to save seed so don't have a great choice but plenty of Turk's Cap seed I can offer in trade. [a Hummer favorite] Thanks

I bought a pair of Mechanix gloves for women: http://www.mechanix.4ursafety.com/series-1-7.html I really like them, except that just one day after purchase the sewing along the "label" over my right thumb area let go, and dirt gets in that way. I'm contacting the company to see if I can get a replacement. Anyway, I LOVE these gloves otherwise! They're leather, so they are tough, BUT they are a thin enough leather that they bend even when not perfectly clean. Getting them a little moist makes them quite supple. They do not have seams in the usual places, so you won't get blisters while using them. And they have a neat wrist-closure system that helps keep dirt out from getting up under your wrists and into the gloves. My only gripe is that they could make a ladies' pair with longer fingers to accommodate those of us with long fingers (or who vainly attempt to keep longer nails!) They were a little on the expensive side compared to others, but they are the first gloves I've owned that I didn't feel like throwing in the trash after a few uses. In fact, I forget I'm wearing gloves, if you can believe that - they are that comfortable. These gloves stay out of your way but save your hands.

I think I can answer the original question from info passed down from my dad, born in 1899 on a small farm in central Arkansas. Much of the population in the last half of the 1800s lived on small farms where the well being of the family was closely tied to their skill as gardeners. Which was done without the aid of fertilizers, hybrids, or insecticides. Blackeyed peas were a common crop. Since they stored well as dried peas they could provide the family with a good food source for many months. Southern peas are a legume that uses symbiotic bacteria to supply itself with nitrogen, so a good crop could be had on relative infertile soils. Even better, in many soils of the southeast, the nitrogen fixed by the bacteria persisted into the following year, leading to better crops of any kind. Crop rotation from peas to other crops was known to be a good practice. Now for the Good Luck. Those families that had planted so much of their land in peas that they were still eating them at the new year had, by doing so, enriched their soil with the nitrogen that would lead to better crops in the following year. The scenario repeated itself enough til people began to associate peas on new years day as a sign of good luck to follow, and a superstition was born.