I've got some Japanese vegetable seeds that I haven't listed in my profile yet. Please excuse the rough translations but these packages are in Japanese. Sweet Pepper "Shishitou Tougarashi" Greens "Katoun" Greens "Mizuna" Mustard Green "Takana" Eggplant "Hitokuchi Nasu" Seeds are packaged from "Anzen Seed" in Los Angeles, CA. Email me if you are interested. I also can get other Japanese and Chinese veggies from a local market. I'd love to have a reason to go picking through their selection for other things if there's something specific you are in search of, but the pickings are starting to get slim!

Kale and collards do very well in my zone, and it is true, they benefit from a frost (which we are getting already!). I did plant the green glaze collard after our little bit of frosty wheather, and they still tasted good, this is why I mentioned them. A nice green that does really well in warm weather is amaranth. There are several varieties and some have leaves that are sizable to use as wraps. However, because of the oxalic acid they should be cooked. There is also New Zealand spinach, but the nutritional profile is nowhere that of collards (or kale). So yes, people in z9-11 still want to grow the Brassica oleraceas, because they are the most nutritious! and some of us eat primarily out of our gardens, summer and winter. Or what passes for winter around here. I just call it warm season and cool season gardening. Mauirose I want some of that chard! Happy, I took my kale out and planted a bunch of onions on that bed, to try to discourage the squirrel. It figured out it (they) like chard! Now they are 'planting' pecans all over my beds to try to store them for the winter, the silly things. Because of them we get pecan 'trees' sprouting all over the place in the spring.

You might get a few squash on the smaller size, that aren't fully ripen, but they'll still taste good, just not as intense/rich of a flavor as the summer fully ripe ones. Kabocha usually are the first ripen squash for my parents(in early summer, by late April-May), then the winter squash ripen in late summer and fall. At this time, there's no Kabocha squash still growing for us. But, if sowing late, then, they will be like the other winter squash, ripening later in the summer and fall. If you need, more lemon grass cuttings or rooted cuttings fresh from the bush/mat, I can get you some for shipping cost. Same with Thai, holy, and lemon basil. I can also get you seeds of the kind of squash we grow too. I don't know the variety, but it have ridges and some are light brown/yellow and others are green with white lines and splotches. I'll show pictures when, I go to the farm. Let me know, if you would like some of the stuff, I mention.

My maruba santoh bolted so i've started eating them. The stem is quite nice. You were spot on in saying they were like lettuce. It is very light and more tasteless than napa cabbage we get at the supermarket. I'd probably only finish the seed and grow it at either end of the season when i can't grow much else. I was impressed with the ability to stand cool weather and it still grew quite well. I needed quite a few plants for one meal though as it literally all wilts down to nothing! I had a prize one which was starting to look like a cabbage the way it splayed out but the it is a magnet for all sorts of pests and i think it might have cabbage root fly or something. Normally they wilt during the afternoon and i have to water them early and evening and they plump back up but this one i suspect has root damage. Shame as i was looking forward to harvesting the biggest and baddest one. Will harvest the rest tomorrow so i get to eat them instead of the flea beetles and friends. Interesting thing is they seem to prefer that over the tatsoi and those in turn over my mustards. They take a lil bite of the mustard and move on. I have already sown tokyo bekana and fun jen so i expect those will be similar. Looking forward to various mustards and choi sum. What have you got growing? :)