my mother and i have many different kinds of seeds we have collected over time. ranging from 4-o-clocks to morning glory crape Myrtle(pink) confederate rose(pink and red) and we have some bulbs as well, iris, daf, narcissis(yellow and white)will trade.

It may have to do with the maturity of the seed, that's just a guess, but I've harvested seed from marigolds on the same plant and gotten different shades. You might separate the seed when planting and label as to which seed it is, then let us know what happens when they bloom :)

I just made a batch of quick refrigerated pickles and I have a question..... first off, let me say my experence is limited. I used to make pickles by just adding some seasoning, pickling spices, garlic and water, put them in a tupperware, and refrigerated until they tasted OK.... they didn't alwas come out great, but definately edible. Recently I began to grow some Burpee Picklers, and I've been successful, so it was time to try my hand at pickling again. A couple of weeks ago,I boiled a mixture of pickling spices, dill weed, pepper, and sea salt; let cool, and poured over sliced cukes in a cleaned store bought jar with garlic and onion added, with also a small amount of 5% acid vinegar. The pickles taste good, but too sweet for my taste (can taste too much of the cinnemon from the pickling spice.)I call them sweet and sipcy. I let the jar sit at room temp for about 24 hours, then refrigerated. Tonight, I made a new batch. Boiled dill seed, dill weed, "it's a dilly" seasoning (has garlic, lemon peel in it also)and sea salt. After boil, I removed the residue, and poured over the cukes with small amount of vinegar, hot & sweet pepper, garlic, and onion, and topped of with some whole dill greens. It's sitting on the counter as we speak, and I planned on putting in the fridge after about 36 hours. Now, the questions..... am I way off base with my technique? can the pickles be harmful if left ut too long? what effect does the vinegar have in this process? Help, Help, Help!

" Is there any thing I should add too get the fermentation process to start faster when saving seeds..." Warm temperatures and the addition of a starter- For most fermentation processes, the addition of a starter culture is common practice, not only to speed things up, but also to give the desired microbes a head start against any unwanteds. When saving seed, I sometimes have several batches going at a time. I'll start the next line-up by dipping my finger in a prior batch, then in the new cups (back-slopping). I soon realized, by unwittingly dipping into the fastest/most active sample, that in a few generations, I would end up with a much faster population of microbes. This becomes very evident when compared to starting over with a new open fermentation. Maybe in part due to selecting the faster of the strains, but also as the microbial flora becomes adapted to the media, it's getting a running start so to speak. Saving a fast starter can be as simple as reusing unwashed containers, (just check that no seeds were left behind). Also, increasing the amount of inoculate,(maybe 10% back-slop, vs a finger dip) will also speed things up dramatically. I started a little experiment three years ago just for fun, comparing some different methods: 1. an open (spontaneous) fermentation 2. a yeast culture (dry Fleichmann's instant) 3. a Kombucha culture 4. seeds screen cleaned under tap water Here are a couple observations- The open fermentation method was by far the slowest, accompanied with unpleasant odors. The dry yeast was easily the fastest (start to finish ~ 24hr) -pleasant/mild aroma. All the seeds look nice and gave an excellent germination test the following year ( better than the commercial source seed), Any differences in viability/longevity remains to be seen, only time will tell. No grow outs have been done to date. George