Hello MW, " Do you know of any botanical books that show with good pictures what to do exactly? " I don't know of any books that have pictures of the hand pollination of zinnias. Actually, for whatever reasons, very few people want to hand pollinate their zinnias. Zinnias do a fairly good job of self-pollinating themselves, so the primary motivation for hand-pollinating zinnias is to do controlled cross-pollinations. That consists of picking the pollen florets of one zinnia and rubbing it on the stigmas of a different zinnia. The pollen florets are the "fuzzy yellow starfish" and the stigmas are the Y-shaped tendrils at the petal bases. The pollen florets are a bit small to manipulate with just your fingers, so the use of tweezers or forceps makes it easier to pick and use them. Click on these photo thumbnails to see the full-sized photo. While holding the pollen floret you can rub it on a number of different stigmas. As a different technique, you can use an artist's brush to dip in the pollen and get some pollen onto the tip of the brush. Then you can touch the tip of the brush to the stigmas you want to pollinate. I have used both techniques successfully to create a lot of hybridizations between the zinnias that I have selected for breeding. I currently use tweezers or small forceps to pick and rub pollen florets on stigmas. My forceps have the advantage of "locking" so I don't accidentally relax and drop the floret, but my tweezers let me work a little faster. " I also want to let some plants cross-pollinate to see if I get new ones... " They won't cross-pollinate on their own. You have to "be the bee" and cross-pollinate them. Left to themselves, zinnias mostly self-pollinate, even when bees are at work feeding on the zinnia nectar. ZM

Here are your melon seeds. They are easy to find. Just use a search engine and type in Spanish Moon Melon Seed. http://www.cooksgarden.com/product/categoryMedium.jsp?catId=2029&pageNum=3&pageSize=3&facetTrail=&sort=default&_requestid=550382

I didn't know what species 'Bottle Gentian' was, so I Googled. Instructions for propagation are at the link. If your winters are 40 degrees or less for 3 months this sounds like a prime subject for winter sowing. There's a Forum here on GW for that technique. Here is a link that might be useful: Gentiana andrewsii

I am not trying to tell you what to do but watermelons like it alittle on the dry side. They dont like there feet wet. If it get very wet you will have fungas problems and may even loose your plants. I grow about 8 acers a year on plastic. For a good tasting red melon that is about 25 pounds try the Patroit melon. A good orange melon of about22 pounds is the Gold Strike. Also the orange-glo melon will get 50 pounds easily put the rind is very thin.