Hey guys! I feel bad I didn't get to check back while it was still small so I picked it at this size... This is the variety: Mine is on the right. The store one is left... I let mine get even thicker. I'll try harvesting some when they are smaller next time! but it feels like you get more fruit this way? I've only had zucchini once in my life, having my zucchini was the 2nd time ever so I don't have anything to base it on, but it didn't taste bad. It's a vegetable... so I don't expect it to taste good. My mom said it was good though. My grandpa used to harvest 2 foot long zucchinis! lol. Anyways I'm rambling. This is the first real zucchini I've grown. :) Thanks for the help!

Thanks for all the input - I have both Louise Odier and Bonica - but neither is very big yet - so perhaps they will make better hips as they get more estabished? I don't recall the Bonica hips being all that noticeable last year. I will definitely check out the Vintage website and look into some of the others mentioned. Ann, I mostly use a fungicide drench on my HTs (no fertilizer or insecticide included). I also spray some mancozeb in the spring when it's very rainy and damp out. However, with the shrub roses, so far I've done one drench in the spring before they leaf out, lime-sulfur in the winter, and let it go after that. The BS doesn't seem to bother them much. I'm in Maryville, just south of Knoxville. I actually have been lusting after Tuscany Superb and think I have a place to put it, if eastern exposure with afternoon shade is good for it, and if it isn't too disease prone. I have my shrub/polyantha/floribunda roses (all unidentified except Bonica) on a south-facing slope in a ring around a flowering cherry. Trying to keep them out far enough that shade won't become an issue. I have space for a couple more shrubs that don't get too big there. Plus I have 4 of one type that doesn't excite me me, so I could replace some or all of them. I would love to have some fall color and winter itnerest in that area. Most of my roses were inherited with the house, and I've been learning over the past three years. Aside from the fungicide, I put on slow-release rose food in the spring and a couple applications of epsom salts during the growing season. Plus I'll water them with compost tea or seaweed when I'm doing other plants and the mood strikes. I don't have enough of them to be much of a burden right now, as far as the spraying and fertilizing goes, but I don't want to add too many more that aren't low maintenance.

The ol' soaking-the-seed "sink or float test" is a prime case of pervasive pseudo-science which has become so deeply entrenched within the "common knowledge" preconception of the public, that even many PROFESSIONAL horticultural authors (those with academic training) continue to peddle this nonsense within their publications. (To paraphrase a personally-modified version of my favorite adages: "If you repeat a lie often enough without challenging it, it eventually becomes doctrinal truth.") Essentially, this long-standing horticultural myth goes like this: When you soak your seeds overnight in a jar filled with fresh water (a form of 'scarification', to help initiate the process of softening an otherwise hard external seed coat, before sowing the seed), those seeds which sink to the bottom of the jar are presumably "viable", while those which float on the top of the water are considered "duds" (dead or infertile). Let me say this, here, and now: This is utter hogwash, because it blatantly ignores the vast diversity of evolutionary adaptations to seed structures. That is to say - that not all seeds (from various plant families/genera/species) are created equal. Some plants have SPECIFICALLY evolved their embryonic progeny (their seeds) to VERY DELIBERATELY float on water (e.i. - to be carried away by swift current) as a way to expand their territorial distribution; a strategy to improve the prospect of their offspring's ongoing survival. But if such seeds were to sink right to the bottom of a stream, river, or creek, then the prospect of their territorial spread would be significantly hampered. In other adaptational models, some seeds have evolved to be carried aloft by air, through wind dispersal, by employing "parachute"-like protruding tufts of silky, thin fibers ('pappus', for the scientific term, or alternative, 'coma'), and these light, ultra-fine, hair-like fibers will also keep the seed afloat should it happen to drift into a body of water. The genus of Asclepias ("milkweed") is an excellent example of such specialized seed structures. Taraxacum ("dandelions") is another. Heck, even among some plants belonging to the very same genus, such as Rosa ("rose"), one species of roses can yield seeds that tend to float (such as R. rugosa, "Beach Rose"), and another species of roses can yield seeds which tend to sink (such as R. pimpinellifolia, "Burnet Rose.") Hence, demonstrating how dynamically-variable these evolutionary adaptions are from plant to plant. In summary, the pervasive "sink or float seed-soaking viability test" SHOULD have been debunked and laid to rest, a long time ago. Because the Plant Kingdom is highly diversified, and that includes seed structures and their inherently variable environmental interactions. The short of it: Some seeds were meant to sink, others were meant to float, and others still will RANDOMLY do both. And yet, they may ALL still be viable, just the same. This renders the "sink or float test" not only grossly unreliable, but purely fictitious (and also, sadly wasteful, because who knows how many billions of viable seeds have been wrongfully discarded through such a fallacious notion). Still, the BIGGEST embarrassment of all, by far, is that even some prominent members of the horticultural/botanical community continue to dispense this myth to the public, when they should otherwise be reliable sources of competent information. The take-home message: Pre-soak your seeds and sow *all* of them, regardless of which ones "sink" and which ones "float." Nature will know best on how to sort out the duds, not you. (NOTE: Short of using sophisticated low-power radiographic imaging apparatus to look deep into a seed's cross-section/internal structure, and non-destructively so, determining seed viable/fertility to 100% accuracy is virtually impossible.)

MileHigh, think we talked about this before, but as a refresher, nearly all citrus are parthenocarpic - have the ability to produce fruit without the need for pollination. Clementine mandarins are probably the most familiar cultivar that needs cross-pollination to produce a decent fruit crop (will still produce, but will be significantly less without cross-pollination). Your limes will form. Not to worry. And, of course, if you have indoor citrus, you wouldn't have the aid of insects to cross-pollinate the flowers, so, no need for a stigma. Patty S. Here is a link that might be useful: Pollination of Citrus