debwhite0215- Are you talking about simply having your plants get pollinated or are you trying to prevent cross pollination? These are two very different things. Cross pollination is when two varieties of the same type of plants pollinate each other. Like if one variety of eggplant pollinated a different variety of eggplant, that would be cross pollination. If you saved the seeds from a cross and planted them you wouldn't know what to expect from the resulting plants. If you are just talking about making sure your plants get pollinated, most veggies are self pollinating but obviously it's always better to plant more than one. Not only for pollination reasons but also because you just aren't going to get much from only one plant (tomatoes and zucchini being exceptions). little_minnie- The misinformation in gardening does bug me a bit. There is a ton of very persistent misinformation that surrounds heirloom, open pollinated, hybrid, and GMO seeds. Everybody wants heirloom, non-hybrid, and non-GMO seeds (not that home gardeners can get GMO seeds) because they want to save their own seeds. And I'm always telling people they don't have to stick with just heirlooms, they can save open pollinated seeds as well and that if they don't prevent cross pollination it won't matter if something is non-hybrid because they'll end up with hybrids in the end. Needless to say, that farmer saying that hybrids are sterile and not able to cross with heirlooms would have frustrated the hell out of me if I saw it. :) A little off-topic but still somewhat relevant. Rodney

You are all so kind to post responses. Farmerdilla, I had no idea that Armenian cucumbers are not actually cucumbers! Thanks for pointing that out! This small fact has really caused me to re-plan my garden lay-out! Dave (and Sue), thanks also. I do hope to save seeds, so Sue's link will be helpful. No need to respond to this, but it is interesting that the fruits of a cross-pollinated plant are mostly unaffected, but it seems they are not wholly so, if there is a difference in the seeds. I assume a difference in the seeds can affect the taste of the seeds, even if its appearance is the same. Maybe I will check out an intro botany book and try to learn about plant growth to have more than a "layman's" perspective. : ) That is, when I find a suitable break from my regular studies (i.e., late ancient history). : )

Here's a response I gave to someone else on the Seed Saving Forum that might be helpful to some people: If you want to save seed from squash(without bagging,) you need to grow only types with a different second name. Squash's latin name is Cucurbita, but all squash have a second name of who they are compatable with. Like zucchini is most always Cucurbita pepo. Butternut is Cucurbita moschata. So zucchini and butternut will not cross because their second names are different. But Acorn squash is Cucurbita pepo, so it will cross with zucchini. There are other second names like maxima and mixta. Also, if you neighbors are growing squash close to you there could be cross pollination. The reason they is so much cross pollination between compatable varieties is squash need insect pollination to make fruit. Other veggies like tomatoes do not. So technically if you wanted to totally make sure your seed was pure, you would need like a mile or something between varieties. For home gardening that is impossible, and as long as your not really close to the neigbors you should be fine. I have seed saved from a local farmer and the squash grew true to type even though he grows different varieties. I think it is just cautionary that you may not get 100% if something is growing in the distance: ) Remy

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