I'm guessing I got about an 80-90% germination rate, which is perfectly fine with me. They're all about a foot or taller now. My only problem currently is that my pickling cukes are invading them on the left side! I keep trying to tie those little strings the cukes send out to where they'll grow up instead of to the right towards the beans, but they're growing so fast, it's only slightly working. Anyways, hopefully i'll have some bean flowers in a few weeks. =) Updated picture of the Yellow Wax Bean bed on my gardening blog linked below. - Steve Here is a link that might be useful: Steve's Garden

Mitch, You need to drive down for a visit in late May or July. Probably late May is best...because by then everything looks really spectacular and the diseases haven't arrived yet. June is a terrific month to see it too, but we have oodles of family birthdays and other family occasions that month so we're hardly ever home in June.. Of course, if this drought continues (and I cannot let myself believe it will) at the current level, there won't be much to see. I used to plant many more tomato plants than I do now--back in the early 2000s. At that point, the deer had not yet discovered the garden, so I could plant a couple of hundred plants outside the fenced-in garden, and the deer and rabbits hardly touched those unprotected plants. Now that we've been here a while, the deer, rabbits, raccoons and every other wild thing (including bobcats) like to get into the garden and feast. The first three are eating plants, but the bobcat is looking for birds or animals, including my cats. Since the wild animals found the garden, I now have to restrict myself to only what I can plant inside the fenced garden, so I'm only going to grow about 1/4 the number of tomatoes that I grew the first few years here. That's OK, though. I grow far too many anyway (although I don't have any trouble giving the extras away). I have had a great time trying new tomatoes, and I guess I'll never stop. I love many of the heirlooms, but the last couple of years, I've been trying a lot of fantastic hybrids from the Harris-Moran Seed Co. (and others) and I've been impressed with their flavor. I still grow a mix, but in hard years (when I expect drought), I grow a higher percentage of hybrids because they tend to produce more tomatoes per plant in many cases. Dawn

Hello Zippty, I have a fairly ritualized procedure for starting peppers and tomatoes which may or may not be the best or worth the effort. I give away hundreds of seedlings every year so I like to do everything on the cheap. I also have a walkout basement so carrying trays up and down stairs isn't an issue. I place my pepper seeds in moist paper towels in plastic toplock bags. I place these on top of my Direct TV receiver box to provide the heat needed for germination. I generally have almost 100% germination within a week. This year my habs and bhuts started germinating in 3 days. After the seeds germinate I plant all the seeds of each variety together in a small container. I reuse the single serving fruit cups for this stage. I place these in a tray and cover it with plastic. Foil cake pans from the dollar store work well for trays. After most of the seedling poke through the soil I move the pots to a west window. When the plants have their first set of true leaves I transplant them into cell packs. I generally plant them slightly deeper than they were growing. Most gardening books say this is a no-no with peppers. At this stage they go under florescent lights in my basement. I keep my lights on 24 hours a day. When the leaves begin to touch each other I transplant into 6-8oz containers. I save and ask friends to save yogurt and similar size container for this stage. Foam cups also work well but tend to tip over when watering. Some of my slow growing peppers like habs,tepins and some ornamentals may stay in these containers until it's time to be planted in the garden. The faster growing peppers like anaheims, jalapenos, hot wax and sweet peppers will be transplanted into 16oz containers after about 3 weeks in the 6-8 oz cups. Again I try to use recycled containers and foam cups if I run out. I use the same containers but not the cell packs year after year. I soak them after use in detergent and bleach and then run them through the dishwasher. Of course companies like HP carry trays and pots that would make the whole process of seed starting a little more streamlined. Hope this helps. Karen

I was so impressed by all the cultivars and wonderful characteristics of Bignonia capreolata (cross vine), that Marty was talking about above, that I did a little looking to see where they can be found. Some of the better sources I could find (due to price, selection, etc.) are: * Sunlight Gardens (about 20 miles from Knoxville) - http://www.sunlightgardens.com/index.html * TyTy Nursery - http://www.tytyga.com/ * Logee's - http://www.logees.com/default.asp * Fantastic Plants (mail order in West TN) - http://fantasticplants.com/ Does anyone know of sources of other varieties besides 'Tangerine Beauty', var. atrosanguinea, and 'Jekyll'?