Well, I finally finished my last seed orders. I had already ordered the bulk of my seeds from Fedco with a local group. Tonight, I placed another Fedco order for eggplant (it kills me to have paid the $5 handling fee since if I could have made up my mind last weekend, I would have been able to order my eggplant then.) I got Rosa Bianca since it did well for me last year (as well as other years that I grew it) and so I can use it for comparison. Then I got Ping Tung Long and Swallow so I could try two different oriental types that have done well in my area. I decided to go with Swallow because it sounds similar to Ichiban, it got good reviews for my zone, and it looks like Ichiban is no longer in production. I ordered the 3 other things I needed from Jung Seeds because they had "Snack Face" a naked-seeded pumpkin (I had been planning on Baby Bear, but decided to try a completely hull-less variety instead) and the Yellow Doll watermelon. They had two types of cucumbers that fit what I was looking for- I went with Iznik, a 3-5 incher with very short vines. I've never ordered from them before, they have some negative reviews on Garden Watchdog, so I hope things go ok. randy41: I appreciate the offer, but I had my heart set on Yellow Doll- I love the reactions I get when I grow unusual varieties. :)

I am adding to this old thread that is 15 years old. I have picked up a lot of info from these threads on numerous cultivars that has helped me in my trials of many varieties. I found it interesting that farmerdilla has pale colored Yellow Doll. Different soils and temps can have effects like this obviously. Yellow Doll grown here in Florida is not a pale yellow but takes on a nice bright yellow. I have been growing that early variety here for a very long time. I grow it for it's earliness, for to me, it is the best early variety I have grown. Has anyone grown the variety Royalty? That variety is a 20-22 lb melon which supposedly ripens in 70 days. Noted for being a great pollinator and has an extended flowering period which will help with a seedless variety if you are growing them. I am going to put that one out in South Florida and start it very early so I can have watermelon starting out in early March. I also just noticed this thread started out as most vigorous vines! lol I think Orangeglo is at the top of my list but I have not grown some known for their aggressive nature and am not interested in doing so. I grow strictly for flavor and production. I will sacrifice production to get the quality of flavor I want, but if I can get both, then that is the cats meow. To me, nothing beat Gold Strike! It had it all. I do not see it ever being available again, which saddens me!

My Apple Blossom is not doing that well... the bulb feels a bit soft and I'm not sure what to do about it... I've re-potted it in fresh soil, and I'm not watering at present, waiting for the soil to completely dry out... I just don't think it's re-growing any roots. I actually think I might lose it, and that makes me sad because I've tried so hard to save it... Should I pull it out of the soil and give it a rest? Should I refrigerate it for 6 weeks and then re-pot? Or should I just let it be? It still has 2 green leaves, and the bulb looks green and healthy, except for feeling a little soft... Hmmm...

Susan, I love growing in containers. Even in a non-drought year I get more consistent production from plants in containers because it is easier to keep them well-watered and as long as the soil-less mix drains properly, they won't get won't get waterlogged like plants in the ground can. That's why I have so many containers. This spring I expect to have about 150 containers, and they range in size from 2 gallon pots to a 4'-diameter metal stock tank to similarly-sized (though not as deept) wading pools (I have three of them). I am toying with the idea of growing lettuce in a cattle feed trough that sits up high on legs. That might solve my problem with small critters like baby bunnies, field mice and voles nibbling at greens in the spring. Baby bunnies are very tiny and can get into my garden either through the fence or by squeezing under the gate. It is hard to get mad at a baby bunny because they are just so cute, but I don't like having them eating the lettuce and their othr two favorite plants--pea seedlings and bean seedlings. The current La Nina did not affect our place the way it normally does in summer/fall, so I'm not sure we'll have the usual La Nina drought in 2011. That's sort of irrelevant, though, because we always have long drought periods in summer in southern OK even when it is fairly rainy elsewhere in the state. Even this summer had lots of drought periods although a brief rainy spell in July and then again in September kept the garden going pretty well, although I had to water very heavily in between those two rainy spells. About the only veggie I can think of that is really difficult in containers is medium- to large-sized pumpkins. While it is easy to grow the very small pumpkins or the bush pumpkins in containers, to get nice, big pumpkins you have to have a very large container because large pumpkins have massive root systems, and you have to water heavily daily because the plants guzzle water as the pumpkins get bigger and bigger. I'd love to have my entire garden in containers because it cuts weeding time down to nothing, but with all that I grow, that's never going to happen. Another problem with containers in drought is that the non-stop heat and sunshine heat up the containers and the soil. I get around that by lining up all the containers close together and then piling hay around them as insulation to help keep them cool. And one wonderful advantage of containers is that they can help you get a head start in spring. I usually put my first tomato plants into containers in mid-February and am harvesting tomatoes from those plants by the end of April. Having those first few plants setting fruit helps me stay patient and not transplant my main crop into the ground too early. You also can carry a few plants into fall/winter if you can get the containers into a warm spot at night. Today or tomorrow, I'll be harvesting a couple of handfuls of cherry tomatoes, one bell pepper and a handful of hot peppers from the five big containers I drag into the garage every night. That means I'll have harvested tomatoes and peppers in every month of 2010 from April through December, and that's not too bad. I also grow strawberries in containers. In the ground, strawberries don't stand a chance here because there's too many wild critters who want to eat them, including the ever-present sow bugs and pill bugs. In containers, though, they're easy. I grow them in wading pools, and it is surprising how many strawberries you get from those container-grown plants. I still have trouble with snakes....they like to hang out in the shade of the containers and sometimes in the containers themselves, but in our very rural, very wild part of the state, that's unlikely to change no matter what we do. Dawn