Interesting experiments as always. Is the tomato tone the new one or old one? Can't remember how much tomato tone you use--is it 3 cups? I know you tried 'doc's snack' of calcium nitrate last time with your earthtainers but was wondering if you did any with just plain tomato tone (the all organic one)? Every one (Al and others) who uses predominately bark mixes on this forum have had poor results with organic fertilizer (I already know the explanations as to why this is so) --I often wonder if people use enough org. fert. but I am also beginning to wonder if you need more peat to retain more nutrients in the mix or something. If you did have an all organic tomato-tone box (in your 3-2-1 mix) how did it do in comparison or did those nasty mites do you in before you could make any determinations? I don't mind using synthetics in containers but I want to find equally effective products for organics as well. Preferably one where the yield is comparable. I will being doing some experiments with different products this fall but haven't decided which to use yet. Thanks for info.

Sherry, Well, I think you can plant them and have limited success. Onions have to be in the ground and achieve a certain amount of growth before bulbing is induced. Since bulbing is induced by a combination of daylength and temperature, it is going to happen when the daylength-temperature combo is achieved, whether the onions have been in the ground for one week, one month, or whatever. So, that is why we have to plant onions so very early--to get maximum growth before initiation of the bulbing process begins. Most onions needs to be in the ground a minimum of 90 to 100 days before bulb initiation starts in order to size up fully, and some need 100 to 120 days. Short day-length onions will begin to bulb up once the daylength (hours of sunlight) reaches about 10-12 hours in combination with the right temperature. Intermediate day-length onions need 12-14 hours days to bulb up. Long day-length onions will begin to bulb up once the daylength is 14-16 hours and the temperature is right, which is why the long daylength onions are not grown in our part of the county. (Our daylength here maxes out around 14 hours.) So, if the onions go into the ground late, they will grow and they still will bulb up once bulb initiation occurs. They'll just be smaller when bulb initiation occurs, thus, they will be smaller at maturity than onions that were planted earlier. One reason that short day-length and intermediate day-length onions planted in the southern third of the country get bigger than those EXACT same varieties grown in the upper 2/3s of the country is that our weather allows us to plant the onions up to 5 months prior to bulb initiation, and the northern states' colder weather does not allow them to plant until approx. 75 days before bulb initiation. So, if you plant late this year, you'll get onions that are "northern-sized" instead of "southern-sized", but you'll still get onions! If you don't mind knowing you'll get smaller onions, go ahead and go for it. It would be a good learning experience if you've never grown onions before. Some commonly-sold short day-length onions are TX 1015Y (aka Texas Sweet or Texas Supersweet), Yellow Granex, White Bermuda, Southern Belle Red and Contessa. Some commonly-sold intermediate day-length onions are Candy, Stockton Sweet Red and Superstar. Some commonly sold long day-length onions (and these should NOT be sold in our region) include Borrettana Cippolini, Red Torpedo Tropea, Ailsa Craig (there's also a tomato by this name), Copra, Big Daddy, Red Burgermaster, Red Zeppelin, Walla Walla, Yellow Sweet Spanish and Ringmaster. I've already planted my main crop of onions, but I do continue planting onions in various spots around the garden as companion plants, and I will, probably through mid-to-late April. Of course, I don't care if those companion-planted onions bulb up or not. Sometimes I leave the companion plant onions in the ground until the following year, and let them bloom in the spring. Their tiny flowers attract a TON of tiny pollinators and beneficial insects, and are quite attractive as well. Dawn

Hi Alex, " ...as a couple of friends of mine were walking through my garden, the question was put to me - "will these come true from seed?" I had to say No, not unless I had the time and resources to grow a large number of plants to allow for backcrosses. Would this be correct? " Not strictly. Your original Whirligig cross that produced your F1 Lotus hybrid (what a lucky beginner's luck thing!) could very well have been between two Whirligig specimens that themselves would not come true from their selfed seeds. Because commercial zinnias are primarily bee-pollinated, a significant percentage of them came from an F1 hybrid bee cross with neighboring zinnias in that particular field. A commercial packet of Whirligig zinnias came from a whole field of different Whirligig zinnias. There will have been a tremendous variety of Whirligig zinnias in that field. The picture on the packet may show only five or six or seven different "typical" specimens, but the reality is that every seed in the packet could be an entirely different Whirligig specimen. So we don't know if the cross you were making was between two selfed Whirligigs, or between an F1 bee hybrid and a selfed Whirligig, or possibly even between two F1 bee hybrid Whirligigs. In any case, your two Whirligigs, like commercial open pollinated zinnias in general, had actual fairly complex family trees. So, it is a given that your Lotus hybrid was an "F1 zinnia hybrid". The process of making an F1 hybrid come true from seed is called "dehybridization". Joseph discusses dehybridized varieties on page 91 of his book. If the original cross was between two inbred varieties, and one of those had a trait that you wished to retain, then backcrossing to retain that trait could be useful. But backcrossing to a heterozygous parent could actually set you back. And since zinnias tend to be heterozygous, back-crossing is probably not a good dehybridizing strategy, even if you do have a good seed supply of the original parents. For zinnias, just grow as many F2s as you can and select the truest examples and possibly intercross between some of the better examples, and repeat that process. Successful zinnia dehybridization can take five or more generations, depending on your standards for "purity". An odd serendipitous thing in zinnia dehybridization is that you may find specimens in your higher generations that actually please you more than your original F1 hybrid goal. You may experience multiple goal drift and wind up with several different dehybridized cultivars. I know that asking me a question can be a bit like trying to take a drink from a firehose, and I apologize for my wordiness. Joseph can probably give you a shorter clearer description of dehybridization. He has had the experience of working with a book editor. But the short answer to your original question is that you don't need to do back-crossing to dehybridize a zinnia hybrid. A dehybridized zinnia does come true from seed. Joseph can give us a valid second opinion on this, and further explain the meaning of heterozygous. If an individual does not breed true for a trait, it is probably heterozygous. Zinnias are usually heterozygous. The definition of heterozygous is having different alleles of a single gene or from gametes with different arrangements of genes. But that is just digging me in deeper. Perhaps Joseph can dig me out of this hole. ZM

So we would need to see the fabric but honestly the best window treatment for bay windows are roman shades and there is no reason you can’t have them made from the fabric you love