I'd have to say first off that you surely seem to have more successes than failures. The garden looks lush and happy. Sorry to hear about the beans. Just curious why you didn't put them in the ground to begin with? Why the containers? My failure has definitely been peppers. The hots are OK, but the green, red, and yellow have all rotted before being picked. I guess it's blossom end rot. I've gotten rid of it on the tomatoes, but no luck yet with peppers. And I've had a blast now that I have GOOD tomatoes. I'd never grown any of the heirloom varieties before, just the better boys, and am loving having the different tastes. Brandywine, cherokee purple, and others. Funny story -- my wife NEVER goes near the garden, but with my daughter the other day went out and picked all the ripe tomatoes, but didn't keep track of which was which. I'm still working on that myself, so suddenly I was left with a bunch of good, but unidentifable tomatoes. I wasn't amused. At least it was better than the last time she helped ... she went out in the fall in pulled out all the dead flowers ... perennials all. Of course ... it's half the fun, isn't it ... figuring out what you did right and wrong, and what we can do better next year. And sharing like this makes it even better. What are you planting for the fall? Happy gardening David

refidnasb: I usually try to bury mine about the same. About the only downfall i've found so far with starting my seeds in the mini greenhouses is that they get leggy very quick (like they can grow 2 inches in a day kinda quick). Then, I only have so much time between work & the two young kids to spend on my gardening. So, sometimes, even when burying them that much, there's still an inch or so above the soil. This always seems to even out with growth sideways as time goes by though. They are well on their way to doing so now. The stems are getting thicker, they are ot growing fast at all upwards anymore, but are growing out nicely & their roots are reaching the sides & bottom of the cups quite nicely also! =) - Steve

Answer to Jim: Thank you for your offer to get me some Pik Red seeds. I went ahead and ordered a couple packs from Ed Hume Seeds. This way I will probably get periodic adverts from him, and since the W. PA climate although colder in winter that you experience is just about as short a growing season as Washington state. All Hume's vegetable selections should be ideal for me here for that reason. By the way, Pittsburgh and Seattle vie for the distinction of having the most overcast days per year of any cities in the USA. Look it up if you find this hard to believe. Pittsburgh is the first large metro area South East of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie being the closest, that lies at the Western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains (they start about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh). The mountains act as a roadblock for weather froths coming through. Low hanging overcast weather fronts that come rolling in off the great lakes in a traditionallly South East direction are blocked by the Appalachian mountains and jam up over us here, giving us our abundance of cloudy days. Then as these moisture laden weather fronts are pushed by the wind from the North West, they must gain altitude to pass over the mountains. As they do they grow colder and are then forced to release their mositure as rain/snow. This is the reason so many people around here are cranky and iritable all the time. Few sunny days to lift up the spirits. Rootman thanks you again, for your kind offer.

I surprise no one is growing Orange Strawberry. It's heart shape and gave lots of fruit for me last year. **** Lots and lots of folks grow Orange Strawberry, me included. And if you do a search at the bottom of this page for heart shaped varieties you'll find several threads devoted to hearts alone. Orange Strawberry first appeared as a stray seed in a commercial pack of Pineapple seeds as found by Majorie Morris of IN. It's also from Marjorie that I got German Red Strawberry, a family heirloom, and I made both of them avaialable initially by listing them in the SSE YEarbook from whence they got distributed to a lot of retail places. I also send the best of my varieties each year to Sandhill Preservation and TGS, and more of late to Mike at Victory Seeds, but for Glenn at Sandhill and Linda at TGS I've been doing it for many years. And I also have been doing a seed offer each year of varieties new to all or most. Damon is a fellow heart lover, which endears him to my heart shaped heart. LOL Just ask him where he got the seeds for Anna Maria's Heart, Danko and Serdtse Buivola, and some others. LOL Carolyn