t bob, that's good feedback on my feedback. I guess the ultimate solution is, one does whatever will work in the area you happen to live in. Somewhere on the arctic circle is some guy with no web access to Garden Web and no information growing a jalapeno and getting a pod or two...LOL I heard the "55 rule" from a grower at a big nursery here called Debaggios. I was looking to do an early to mid May transplant, and he said, no, wait for consistent > 55 nighttime temperatures, to around May 20. He was right...my earlier plants had fewer and smaller pods than the ones that waited for the higher nighttime temperatures. We recently had 2 nights in the 40's and that seemed to bring the pod growth to a screetching halt. They were happily producing a robust 2nd harvest until those cold nights last week, but they really seem to have called it quits now in terms of new growth. However, along the lines of your post, I think one can get wrapped too tightly around the web-recommended metrics when you just have to try things out to see what happens. For instance, I read from many sources that peppers want 6-8 hours of direct sun, and won't even waste their time with less than 4-5 hours. Well, I only have 50 square feet available that gets 5 hours of direct sun. Another 10 sf that gets 3 hours, and then around 60 sf that gets no more than 2. That latter area is trapped between a house and woods, blocking the sun except between 11:30 to 1 pm, but is the largest space I have for gardening. And guess what, every single square foot on my property produced peppers this year. Now, the area with the real sunlight produced more, better peppers. But even the area with the 1.5 to 2 hrs of direct sun produced a fatali with > 40 pods, a Jaloro with > 30, a handfull of cayennes and serranos with 10-15, and a yellow drop with 20. So it can be done, if not perfectly, the moral of the story being to give it a shot and see what happens. Zenit: I think if you grow indoors under really good lights it'd probably be OK to start some super-early to see what happens. Here's the experience I had growing indoors with plenty of lead time (around 11-12 weeks). My lights were weak. So the plants got super-super leggy and tall. Then, when they were transplanted, they stayed with that theme of growing up and up and up. I have several 6 foot tall peppers that are supposed to be 24-36 inches. But that is not a good thing. That unusual vertical growth comes at the expense of filling out the foliage in the middle, and ultimately leads to low yield / small pods. Thus, I had a half dozen plants this year that were taller than me and yielded 5 to 8 pods, instead of the expected 25-30. So.....it's worth trying as an experiment, but mother nature's design is hard to mess with successfully. She wants to see 8 to 10 week old plants at transplant. It all comes down to the lighting - you need a strong light, right in the face of those plants; every inch away from the leaves that those lights are will cost you severely in terms of legginess and, down the road, poor pod development. The young plants crave sun, and they react strangely to 0.01 of sun, which it seems is what a cheap flourescent light too far away from the leaves delivers. But good luck and do share your results here if you try it

I cut the seeds from the mama when they are brown and dry. Some may start to open, that is o.k. I leave them in the pods and store them in paper coin envelopes that I buy at the office supply. This is my first experience with hollyhocks, and I am just totally thrilled. My friend in Idaho shared seeds with me, and I planted them in the spring last year. I have lots of babies in the garden that reseeded from the mama. I am going to put them where I want them to grow. I think they will make it through our winter just fine, I worry more about the heat of our summer. I am also going to sow some seeds and try and keep track of their progress, so I know more about what I am doing with them. My hollyhock is red, and grew to about 10 feet, covered in beautiful dark green foliage and gorgeous red flowers. I am happy to share seeds. Would you have a yellow seed pod to share? OR is that allowed here? Just slap me if it is not. I am not familiar with the customs on this forum. Janie

there is nothing that flowers this spring.. that probably has mature seeds ... i think you are looking too early ... though you should have seen immature white nodules .... many cultivars carry a patent ... and the fee is paid on the sale of the seed .... it would be highly shady for anyone to pay the royalty.. and then not brag about such.. by using the name ... but this might be an older strain .. that the patent fell off of ... and the newer on.. an IMPROVED variety ... take the latin... and add propagation ... to see how and when to take cuttings to try growing indoors ... when i do this... i start such in early fall ... hoping to get a rooted plant growing out in shade in a pot ..... BEFORE i have to take them indoors ... perhaps i can take more cuttings before frost .. if the first wave fails ... ken

Hi mxk, " My Uproar Rose zinnia seem to have sturdier stems than the Benary's Giants I grew. Would that be due to differences in the variety/strain? " Yes, I think it is genetic. Uproar Rose is an F1 hybrid, while the Benary's Giants are open-pollinated field grown. I mentioned elsewhere that I added California Giants to my genetic mix to get sturdier plants. Preliminary results are encouraging, but that is an ongoing project. I like new flower forms and such, but I think the plants themselves are an important part of a zinnia. In these Kansas winds, you can't get too sturdy. " I'm thinking I should cut back the BG's once planted to get stockier growth... " Yes, I think that pruning or pinching can lead to better branched, sturdier zinnia plants, regardless of the the cultivar. Ideally one would routinely pinch out the central bud, but I am always anxious to see a first bloom, and cull based on that bloom, so for my breeders I leave the central bud on to see a first bloom as soon as I can. For sturdier indoor zinnias I include a little potassium silicate in their nutrient solution. Silicon is not necessary for plant nutrition, but plants do use it to strengthen cell walls. Rice growers use commercial fertilizer that is fortified with silicon for stronger stems to keep the rice seedheads out of the water. The stronger cell walls are said to make zinnias more disease resistant. There are many products containing available Silicon, but the one I use is Dyna-Gro ProTeKt As I recall, I purchased mine from Amazon. ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)