If your plants aren't showing any signs of being root-bound, I wouldn't bother to repot them (yet.) The "bolting" on broccolli is the part you eat, but it will flower quicker and taste stronger when thing start to heat up. If you have an early variety, they might do okay. Cauliflower depends on the variety as well, but you are probably too late to get mild tasting heads. And later varieties (e.g. self blanching) will probably just wait until fall to head. Cabbage and its flavor probably won't be affected much. But the leaves will be tougher. Later varieties (e.g. flat dutch) may also wait until fall to head. Hope this helps with your decisions. -Terry

You're so right about the caterpillars, George. I tell visitors when they see my captive hornworms, how they got so big in only 3 weeks. I hatch enough from the ova to tell almost to the day [it still varies], how long to pupate. When hornworms hatch from their literally pinhead-sized ova, they are approximately 1/32" x 3/16" and that's still considerably smaller than the horn on a 3" cat! Their filamental black horn is a surprising 1/8" long too. They rather grow into it. At first, they are translucent yellow. They have ot eat something before they get green. It takes 5-7 days, for them to achieve just 3/4" to 7/8". They will only be 1/8" diameter, too. They are tiny and soooo fragile. I still avoid physically touching them to the best of my ability, when so small. Also, they don't achieve their characteristic stripes until they are at least 3/4" to 1". Again, it will vary a bit. From 1" to 2" only takes 5-6 more days. Seven more days, and the cats are as big as most adult fingers! While we may not observe the cat's earliest stages, their growth is exponential. Depending on diet, 3 to 3.5 weeks will send most tobacco hornworms to the pupating medium. The big caterpillars will actually lose a little size/weight just prior to pupating, and change color, too. Some get a little reddish/pinkish, while others just go to a different hue of green, marked by slight translucense. I attribute the latter to the drop in chlorophyll since eating has stopped and the cat has fully purged itself. The miracle of metamorphosis comes next. No other animals on earth do this, but certain insects. God only knows, because science can't even explain or unravel its mystery.

My Vietnamese Black Dragon peppers are finally turning red--I ate one today, and it was HOT! They go through multiple color changes, from a kind of dark green to black to green to red. I was wondering if anyone could tell me why they have evolved or adapted to change color so many times. I was wondering what could be the possible benefit(s) for the plant. It makes for a fairly cool sort of pepper to grow. I Googled the plant, and didn't find any info as to why it undergoes so many color changes. Any info would be very welcome!

Sorry about the double post, I realized I didn't answer Honu's question. Honu, Aloha! Honestly, I cannot say I have had the pleasure of trying a Hawaiian chile. Someday I certainly will if I can get my hands on the seeds. Regarding your question; I will split it into two parts. First, as far as heat, heat is a somewhat subjective thing. Now, it's true that no one on earth would day that a bell pepper is hotter than a chocolate hab, but different species of capsicum have different types and ratios of capsaicin. Therefore, if someone has only eaten habaneros (capsicum chinense) their whole life and then bites into a manzano chile (capsicum pubescens) they would certainly find it hotter than someone who has been eating manzanos their whole life. For instance, I can bear habaneros but choke like crazy on jalapenos, which have lower levels of capsaicin but a type of capsaicin I am not used to. Capsaicin is a vanilla-like compound (no kidding) that binds to the pain receptors in your mouth. I'm not quite sure what happens to build tolerance (perhaps an increased level of some certain enzyme?) but something makes eating a certain type of chile more bearable after a while. That being said, I have read HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography, which involves the extraction of capsaicin from the sample pepper and the direct measurement of the level) reports on some of these chiles, and nothing compares to the amount of capsaicin in the capsicum chinense species. They have a very high level of capsaicin compared to other peppers and HPLC is a much more accurate and less subjective method of measuring heat than the scoville units test (a dilution test). The hottest capsicum chinenses that I have tried? Trinidad scorpion, chocolate scotch bonnet, chocolate habanero. I have a friend who claims the USDA datil is the hottest thing he has ever tried (out of I would guess hundreds of different chinenses) and another friend who swears by something called a trinidad 7-pod (also known as a 7-pot, the name being a derivation of the fact that one pepper will season 7 pots of soup, go figure). With that, we will see what comes for me in the future but I can say this: the red savina is not the world's hottest pepper. Regarding taste: that's a tough one. I like the more fruity, citrusy chinenses over the smoky ones, and don't like the taste of annuums that much. For annuums, pequins and long slim cayennes are nicely flavored and pretty versatile. My favorites are obviously the chinenses though, and if I were to pick the best tasting they would be, in no order, limon, fatalii, datil, caribbean red hab, chocolate hab (quite smoky but still very nice), billy goat, true scotch bonnet, devil's tongue, red hab (wonderful!), yellow hab (like an incredibly hot datil), grenada scotch bonnet, scotch bonnet, red (from tomatogrowers). Of these if you are looking for something a bit milder and not so explosive stick with scotch bonnet, red, yellow scotch bonnet, and limon, I think they are bearable. If you are looking for something mild but still good tasting go with aji dulce #2. I hope I didn't overanswer your question. To trim it down to five chinenses would certainly involve limons, datils, caribbean reds, fataliis and chocolate habs, but that does not do justice to the wonderful flavor and versatility of some of the others I have tried, which are just as delicious but not as brutally hot. Good luck with chile growing and if you have any other questions let me know. Mark p.s. we did have a humid summer this year, very humid in fact, and the chiles did well. I don't know if humidity affects them as much as heat, and certainly fertilizer and water level affects them as well. Basically, the more stress the hotter the pepper, but I am in NJ so we are not usually incredibly hot or humid. Peace!