You're sure welcome, Cabrita. "The book you mention sounds like a good addition to my library. ... I think I need to learn a bit more about plant sex ;-)" Heh-heh! Seed to Seed explains a whole lot of "the birds and the bees" when it comes to vegetables. ;) It's an excellent book on isolation techniques for saving pure seed. It'll explain in great detail caging, bagging, hand pollinating and all sorts of other things involved in saving pure seed. The best part is it tells you which techniques to use on which plants. EXCELLENT resource for that imho. And it's less than 17 bucks on Amazon. I just put in an order for another one as a friend came over today and I gave her mine. *blush* But that gave me an excuse to buy Great Garden Companions by Sally Cunningham, a book on companion planting that I've been wanting for a while. Gotta' spend $25 to get that free shipping you know. *snicker* "I am confused about caging, how will the bees get in there? then you say hand pollinating. I don't know how to do that. I heard (read) this on the tomato forum too." The bees won't get in there. That's the entire purpose of caging. If you don't cage the ones you want to keep pure, a few bees will visit some Queen Anne's Lace nearby (really, I'd bet money you have it growing near you), pick up some QAL pollen on their legs/hair, land on your carrot blooms on the way back to the hive and deposit some of that QAL pollen on them. Now your carrots are cross pollinated with the QAL. Bummer. And you very well may not be able to tell ~ just avoiding saving seeds from white-rooted carrots won't be enough of a guarantee that they didn't cross since sometimes a cross will look just like one or the other parent, but won't taste or grow like them. Just like humans ~ some people look a whole helluva lot like Mom, but they're not her twin. To keep that from happening, you build cages with some sort of screening on them that will allow air, sun and rain through but not bees. Window screen works nicely on a wood frame, as does light floating row cover on hoops tall enough to keep the cover off the carrot blooms. You cover your carrots with them, a bunch of plants at a time. Here are some pictures of what I'm talking about: Pic 1 Pic 2 ~ second picture on that page And here's a thread with a good picture and lots of info on how to build them. Since there are no bees, you'll have to take their place and hand pollinate. It's as simple as moving pollen from one flower onto another. (Be sure to only do this between plants that are showing the trait you want ~ heat tolerance in this case.) This can be done with a small paintbrush ~ just touch the pollen parts, loading it up with pollen, then touch a bunch of blooms and the pollen will get desposited. Do this all over all the blooms and you're done. Another way is to pick one bloom and use it as the paintbrush, brushing the other blooms with it ~ pick a few different blooms and brush each one on all the other blooms to ensure a good genetic mixup. But if you pick those blooms, that'd be that much less seed you'll get since of course the blooms you've picked and used as your paintbrushes won't go on to set seed. Don't think that you can just avoid that by picking the blooms of the plants that aren't showing heat tolerance and use those ~ you need to use blooms from plants showing the trait you want since their genetic traits are going to be crossed into the other blooms and their resulting seed ~ the blooms you pick are going to be Daddy to your next generation of seed. But in the coming generations when you have hundreds of plants growing out, you may find it so much easier to do it that way that it's well worth sacrificing those blooms. The Seed to Seed book will explain all this in better detail and more accurately than I can. It's really a great book. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone who wants to save true vegetable seed. I've given away two of them so far and doubt that my third one will stay with me for very long before it gets passed on as well. ;) It's really that good of a book. There's also a book on breeding new vegetable varieties that was recommended to me, but I haven't bought it yet (one of these days...). I can't remember exactly what it's called ~ something like "Breeding Your Own Vegetable Varieties" or something.

Alana, I couldn't agree with you more about the tone the forum has taken with some newbie threads. As Sue said, trying to help out the newbies the best we can is something we can do to help. I really think that part of the problem is the link to the "rules" doesn't work and hasn't worked for so long now. When I think back, more than 8 years now, when I joined and wanted to be part of the seed exchange forum, the first thing I did was look at the forum change for info on what to do. The links worked then and the info was available. What I wouldn't have first done was to look at the threads for a thread to tell me what to do, how to post, what the rules are and I'm not sure, when I think about it, if I would have actually believed the thread that we have running and keep bumping up all the time that is written with all the rules. Reason being that it is written by "just another member" and not the "real" thing posted as part of the info from the site owners. I know Sue, and I agree with having the thread there. I've even reposted it when it hit 150 posts, and it's important to have it there because it is all we have for the rules and stuff. I just wonder if the thread itself is something that some members might ignore because it is just written by another member and not the "site owners". Another problem with the thread is that it gets lost on the page very easily and quickly with other posts being added and ends up lost on back pages. If there was a way to post the thread title in red or another color so that it would stand out all the time, that would help to have it noticed and maybe read. As for the actual posts that have been showing up on newbie threads, many of them have been mean spirited and cruel, something that really shocked me to see. It is something in all the years I have been on this forum, have never seen before. When I've spotted them, I've tried my best to diffuse the posts and calm things down. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I hate to see threads deleted, but ti does show that "the powers to be" are watching the site and the forums and making judgement calls that have been good when a thread is deleted. And yes, if I where a newbie and got attacked like that, I'd be history too. GW is still having some big time problems. For a while I was able to get my zone info to stay, but in the past few days it's gone. I can't get a blurb to stay either, my birthdate is wrong and no matter what I do I can't log out of GW even if my computer is shut down for more than 12 hours. It's a pain to always be logged in as my hubby is a member as well and hasn't been able to log in with his user name because mine is always there. I have been sending info about the problem through the contact us link and the response has been they are working to fix the bugs and, in my case, they can't figure out why I am permanently logged in and gave me a link to use so hubby can log in and then I can change it for me. So I've held off on posting a huge trade list too. The only suggestions I have is this. Keep an eye on the forum and when we see newbies posting, check the thread to be sure that there are no "wrong type of posts" on the thread. If there are than we need to diffuse them if we can, welcome the newbie and direct them to the info thread on the rules of the forum, remind those inappropriate posters that there are some glitches with the forum right now and that is why certain info is missing from member pages. Most of all Alana and Sue, it looks like the 3 of us need to be a kind of welcome wagon to the newbies for now, until things settle down and return to the normal that they have been in the past. Kindness can go a long way, welcoming a newbie can go a long way, helping out with info can go a long way. Fran

Sandy, I'd be open to this. In fact, I am currently working on a paper I'm calling "Crops which Grow Like Weeds," which deals with some useful food crops which kind of take care of themselves. I'm personally, much more into FOOD. But those things you mention play into food production. Also, I'm kind of the one being used to get this started. But it's not about me. It's about our regional sustainability and gardening culture. I fully expect this to develop beyond my own personal limitations. I believe that anyone who can grow and reproduce something which is useful and suitable for our conditions, and would be willing to promote it and share can help a great deal. George

I received the last package today so now the fun begins. Actually I have worked on it all along so maybe the sorting won't be as bad. I had a list on which I gave everyone a number. When their package came in, I put that number on each package of seed so I would not give someone back their own seed. Then I made a list of what they sent in for the swap and put it all on a spreadsheet so hopefully I don't send them back the same kind of thing they sent in. I have another list that shows what they would like to have (if I have it). Maybe I can make all of this work. Some of you sent seeds marked for Diane and I didn't do anything to them except look at them. Lucky Diane! Thanks to all of you for caring about each other. George sent a wish list with only herbs and flowers and since I had not included herbs and flowers in the swap instructions, his share will be limited, but he knows that. However, he was very generous in sharing his seeds with us. In return, please offer a prayer in behalf of he and his family as they are experiencing some employment trials at this time. Jay said he was sending a little box with a few seeds. HaHa It was not a little box, nor was it a few seeds. I have repackaged some of the bulk packs that he sent and he says he doesn't want anything back either. I am sending him a couple of things anyway so he can try Dawn's new tomato, and the cowhorn okra I traded for earlier in the year for him. Almost everyone sent more than the required amount and two people want little or nothing back, so we will have some extra packets that will be included in your package. Actually Diane, it hasn't been too much of a mess. I took out all of the packets and put numbers on them, wrote down what was in the packs, and returned them all to the original package. I did this as they came in then kept them all in a clothes basket. Today, however, the mess begins and I have my entire dining room table covered with seeds. LOL I have seen the variety of seeds that Dawn and Jay have, and we still have our own king and queen of gardening on this forum. LOL Now the fun begins....and I will let you know when to start checking your mailbox. Thanks for playing. Carol