I think we tend to harvest last of August first of Sept but depends on rain and heat. I have a number of cherry types around the yard so there is good pollen most springs. What does happen is cold snaps, high winds and no pollinators so there is usually something each year but really biannual is best production! I think there are very few fruit plants in this climate that stay healthy for long if the produce heavy every year. I want to try making some cuttings of this red one (it does get darker if left) as it seems to produce well and makes a nice small tree. Suckers in its present growing place but could be controlled grown in mowed grass. Would need watering here to produce well. I have pulled out plants from time to time as they went down in production for one reason or another! I do have a new Red Leaf small tree that looks like it will produce a good berry so am watching it as well. I had a fellow who was here for a BBQ say it would look good in his front yard. Just need to get some cuttings going and propagate it up.

Hi MusicSub - Well, I wouldn't say I abandoned it, no and I hadn't heard there is a new square foot gardening method. I'll have to check it out. I still grow in raised beds and plant fairly close together, but I don't mark out each square foot or pay that much attention to the distance. I'm still paying more attention to other projects, I guess. This year, I planted in the spring, kept it mulched and watered and barely paid any attention to the vegetable garden at all. It made a difference, I was not as successful with the garden this year. I've had trouble with tree roots invading my veggie beds and I just didn't have time to dig them all out before I got started. It was discouraging. Speaking of peppers and having no fruit on the plants. I planted Carmen peppers this year. I grew them in the backyard where there is 6hrs of sun and the front yard where there is full sun. I've always planted them in the back and produced peppers by the end of the season. This year the plants in the front grew much larger than those in the back. I'd say double the size. Strangely, same variety of pepper, 3ft apart, in same amount of sun, same amount of fertilizer and water. One Carmen pepper was covered with peppers and nothing on the other one, all season. Plenty of flowers and bees too. I just noticed there are a few tiny peppers on that plant finally, but the other plant has a lot more and already picked a couple of red ones. The Carmen pepper is a nice elongated pepper and they really produced. I'd say that they have a thin wall though. I really like a juicy Bell pepper and I haven't found one I like yet. I have about a half dozen still left in the back that are almost all red. And a dozen green peppers in the front right now. Sungold tomato - grew it in the back in 6hrs of sun and full sun in the front. What a difference. The plant in the front is probably triple the size of the one in the back. Pushing out tomatoes to beat the band. Shared them all summer and had more than enough for us. It was our earliest tomato too. I just brought in 5 dinner plates full of ripe tomatoes this morning from one plant. Pretty good for doing very little to the plant all summer. Weekly, half strength Neptune fertilizer and that was about it.

As a follow up to my original question on seed viability, let me point out that I'm forced to try saving seeds from an unripe pod because pods never turned red through the growing season. This is my first year growing this strain, which I like because it's not too hot. In previous years, with a different strain, I've had plenty of red jalapenos, which I like to smoke for chipotles. So my follow up question is to ask if there is a lot of variability between different strains as far as ripening is concerned. The plants grew well and early and I had a large crop, but the pods I left on the plants never turned red. I'm trying to overwinter one plant because I read on the Forum that this will give me a plant that produces early. Does anyone have any suggestions for how I can produce ripe pods? Thanks for all the help, Tom

I would say it's the heat not the plants. It got hot here in May and there's been little let up. You may have had better success in the past because you planted in raised beds where the soil heats up faster in the Spring. Next year, I am going to plant my Spring tomatoes exclusively in raised beds to get my tomatoes going faster and blooming sooner. You could try a Fall crop. Here in the Dallas area the extension office recommends putting out Fall tomatoes in the month of July. I would recommend early and mid-season varities though---the late varities might not have enough time to mature. You wouldn't need to use raised beds because the soil is plenty warm enough!! As far as growing from seed, you could check out the growing from seed forum for tips on how to get strong healthy transplants. I'm going to post a couple more good links. Growing from seed is cheap and gives you an opportunity to try many different varities. http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/tomato-from-seed.html http://nctomatoman.topcities.com/Techniques/SeedlingsMethod.htm Pete