I wish I'd taken pictures! I was so freaked out by the possibility of contagion that I threw the diseased leaves away. Previously, some of the lemon tree leaves had yellowed due to changing light conditions, and that looked totally different. When it was light-related, the entire leaf turned sort of a pale shade of green/yellow. This discoloration was more like... more light brown then yellow. And instead of the entire leaf turning a pale color, it was more like a part of the leaf had turned a strange "dead-looking" shade of light brown. I'm hoping it doesn't return, but just in case it does, I'll take a picture and post it. Any ideas on what that brown/black spots on the bay leaf could be?

I started my seeds in January, so I have plants that were strated between January and monthly since that time, some of which are still in the seedling flats. There are MANY motivations as to why folks come through the Atlanta area. My primary gola was to grow out two of each, save seed for next year of my original collection and then to save seed from those I grow for others next year. I chose not to ship plants as that would leave a LOT of room for plants to be in less than optimal condition. I placed ads in the Ag review and Craiglist. Most have come from Craigslist. I now have about 125 varieties and am simply trying my best to provide quality plants, teach folks about heirlooms, and teach them how to save seed. After two recent strokes and a very aggresive spinal disease, there is no way that I can do this next year. Most folks have no idea how much work there is involved in raising quality plants from seed, especially when you are approaching 1500. However, ever single opportunity has resulted in a wonderful opportunity for sharin a LOT more than just the plants.

Anney, I'm not critiquing, just want to be clear that foliage disease tolerance is VERY low in virtually all commercial tomatoes. There is one exception and that is for Early Blight. WV700 is an old commercial line that somehow wound up with a gene that gives relatively good tolerance to infection. This gene made its way into several other varieties over the years. It is probably the gene that Eva Purple Ball has which gives good disease tolerance. There are two mistakes to avoid; to think that a plant with low fruit load is somehow resistant, and to think that a vigorously growing plant is resistant. Low fruit load can easily result in reduced foliage damage. A plant that grows fast enough can produce new leaves faster than old leaves are destroyed with the caveat that it has to have the soil nutrients, sunshine, etc to maintain the growth. So long as you are selecting varieties that measure up for production, you can indeed make some interesting observations. Keith Mueller crossed Big Beef X Eva Purple Ball for me a few years ago. I've been growing out and stabilizing the resulting cross for a few years now and have a significantly more disease tolerant line than either parent. It stands up much better to nematodes than Eva Purple Ball and it handles foliage disease better than Big Beef. Production is phenomenally heavy though I have to say that flavor is still mediocre. I'd like to incorporate Late Blight tolerance into it and have sent Randy Gardner some seed hoping he can make a cross this year. Septoria is a sticky problem. There are exactly 2 lines in TGRC that have noted Septoria tolerance. I'm going to get both of them out for next season. I have not seen any tolerance in any variety that I have grown so far. DarJones

Courtesy of Byron Most popular Insects of Peppers. Aphids, blister beetle, Colorado Potato Beetles, corn earworm, European corn borer, flea beetles, hornworm, leafhoppers, leaf miners, leaf rollers, nematodes, potato tuberworm, spider mites, whiteflies, and the occasional Pepper weevil, and pepper maggot. Post a message to the Hot pepper forum for detailed information on how to control these pests. However, most of these pests can be kept under control with Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques or with organic pesticides.