Yep that's one thing I've found with gardening- there's ALWAYS room for a just a couple more plants! That sounds like a good idea! It may turn out great, leading the vines around the bucket paths that I don't actually walk in and are just there for space between the other plants... hmmm. Then I could worry about figuring out where to lead it as it gets longer. They would be on a wood deck but the spaces between boards are pretty wide- I think I could still use staples since the ground is 3" below the wood. I'm sure there has to be a way to make it work! And if it doesn't really work, well I'll try something different next time. Thanks again. And good luck with them jsvand5. I looked up the varieties you picked and they look tasty. And seeds are okay- makes you eat it slower and the enjoyment last! And you can actually roast watermelon seeds. If you really wanted to anyways. Not that anyone actually does it. Do they? Hmmm. Well, take care.

I talked to the Public Health official a year or so ago at the market (they were doing a spot check - the one and only time I have had one) about samples. Her statement was that all we needed for a handwash station was single use water (not a bowl where you dip your hands), soap and towels. The water did not have to be hot. So I pulled out the water cooler (it's always in the truck anyway, got a bar of soap out of the ditch kit and paper towels out of the market box. The wash is for us not the customers so set it on the tailgate of the truck and volia - compliance. There were other little details - she was not too keen on using my pocketknife to slice so now have a regular fized blade knife in the truck) and the samples are not to be touched so we have a little box of toothpicks. We quite often open up a mellon for samples as well as apples in the fall. We also carry Dixie cups and give samples of our cider which boosts sales an amazing amount. I suspect the 50% of those that take the sample but a jug. Granted, this is all in the People's Republic of Illinois but I imagine in a free state like Indiana the requirements are much alike. Tom

Hi Everyone! I had no idea that y'all would find hay so interesting, but believe me, I think it is a great friend to gardeners due to the many ways it can be used. Plaid Thumb: How hay is baled depends on the type of baler used. In general, though, each bale is made of a compressed stack of smaller pieces....think of a bale of hay as a roll of quarters. Each 'quarter' is compressed hay 2" to 4" thick. These sections are tightly compressed to form the whole "roll of quarters". When you cut the baling wire, if the hay has been properly baled, it will sit there like the wire wasn't even cut. A typical square bale probably weighs 40 or 50 pounds if it is fresh. The older hay gets, the more it dries out and partially decomposes and the less it weights. Old hay, like the 'spoiled' stuff my ranching friends somtimes give me, will weigh significantly less. (I can lift a bale of old hay if it is old enough, but I have to drag a bale of new hay.) Round bales are wrapped in layers that are tightly compressed, so a properly baled round bale will unroll like a carpet of hay about 2" thick. Unfortunately, that round bale weighs about 1500 pounds, which is why I find it so hard to work with round bales. Those square hay bales are so tightly compressed that it can be hard to pull the sections apart. And, the harder it is to pull apart the bale, the better the job of baling was done. You MUST have that hay as tightly compressed as possible to keep the oxygen out of the bale. If oxygen can get into the center of the hay bale, the oxygen can combine with the small amount of moisture present in the hay and begin the decomposition process. This, in turn, can result in spontaneous combustion of the hay bale. This happens more often than you think. If a farmer or rancher stores his hay in a barn, he MUST be sure it is very dry first or the whole mess can combust and burn down the barn and all the hay. When I buy hay, I ALWAYS store it outside so there is no chance it will combust inside my shed or garage. Straw, by the way, is different. It is a lot more lightweight and doesn't pack down tightly like hay. Thus, a bale of straw weighs less and covers less ground. One advantage of straw over hay is that straw is just the plant stalks after all the grainheads have been removed, so there's nothing in the straw that can germinate and begin growing in your garden. Also, if you are trying to mulch something small with fairly close spacing, like onions or bush beans, hay is looser and easier to work into those small areas. As far as the price of a bale of good hay, it is dependant on the quality of the hay you are buying (which matters more if you are buying it for horse or cattle to eat, than if you are buying it as mulch). In general, we pay $3.00 to $5.00 per square bale at the feed store, and probably it is usually $4.00 or $4.50. When hay is scarce, like in late winter when most of last year's crop has been sold and this year's crop is not yet harvested, it can cost more. In periods of prolonged, severe drought, it can cost more due to the laws of supply and demand, and that is if you can even find it at all. I'm going to buy some hay this week or next to store for fall because we are in a severe drought here in southern Oklahoma, and hay is going to be hard to find at any price in the fall. (I have seen it sell at the feed store for $7.00 a bale during drought periods.) Okie3, Different melons do set fruit at different rates. Crimson Sweet usually sets fruits pretty early compared to many others, which is why it is so often recommended for northern growers who have shorter growing seasons. Black Diamond sets fruit later, although I think you should see fruit on those plants fairly soon if they were planted at the same time as your Crimson Sweet. One of the differences in the two is that Crimson Sweet will give you 20 to 30 pound melons under optimal conditions and Black Diamonds will usually give you 60 to 75 pound melons under those same optimal conditions. If you look at the vines of those two types, it seems like Black Diamond vines are usually thicker, lusher and more vigorous. I think that Black Diamond has to spend more time making lots of vigorous growth early on in order to produce those really large melons. And is sandy soil best? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. When I was a kid growing up in Texas, the best melons you could buy in the stores came from parts of Texas with sandy soils. (Now, of course, watermelons sold in stores are imported from anywhere and everywhere and I don't think the quality is as good any more.) Watermelons make huge root systems, and the looseness of sandy soils obviously makes it easier for those roots to grow and spread. Katrina, The only time I have ever heard of the nitrogen-draining effect is if the hay, straw or grass clippings are tilled INTO the soil and not merely placed on top of it. I don't think that hay or straw or grass clippings on the surface of the soil ties up nitrogen in the same way. If you are worried about it being a problem, why not put down a natural source of nitrogen like manure or cottonseed meal, for example, before you lay down the hay or straw? I do not think the hay or straw in any way has a negative effect on my garden. My tomato plants, for example, are anywhere from 4' to 9' tall and are producing fruit like crazy. The flowers that I mulched with hay are all lush, green and tall and blooming beaurifully. Over time (with most of the veggie and flower beds now being 6 years old), the amount of improvement in the soil has been incredible--mostly due to the decomposing mulch which enriches the soil. The issue of poorly draining clay soil is a whole different ballgame though. In poorly draining areas, I am a little more cautious about the use of hay. I still use it, but I do watch it for a yucky, sour smell which indicates the hay is really staying almost too wet. Also, I keep it pulled back a couple of inches from the trunks of trees or shrubs, just to ensure that some sort of rot doesn't set in. If your soil is incredibly slow draining, you might want to consider aerating the soil once every year or two to get more oxygen into the soil. You can get a lawn service to perform aeration for you, or you can rent an aerator and do it yourself. Even better, after aeration has been done, fill the holes with compost. The earthworms will mix that compost in with your clay to improve the drainage even more. MOST of my clay drains moderately well because most of it is a sandy-clay. However, right outside my back door I have a large section of denser clay where rain puddles can sit for several days before they finally either soak into the soil or evaporate, or some combination thereof. My solution to the dense clay, though, is to topdress that area often with compost OR hay/straw. Why? Well, the only way the drainage will ever improve in that clay is to get more organic material into the soil. Of course, topdressing doesn't get the organic stuff down into the soil as quickly as rototilling it into the soil would, but eventually the earthworms and other soil-burrowing critters do carry the organic material down into the clay. And, over time (speaking in a period of years), the drainage improves and the water soaks into the soil faster than it used to. BrandNewGardener: OK, you will think I am crazy or perhaps making this up, but here goes: I have used grass clippings for years and years and I've NEVER had a problem with them blowing away. I know that defies logic, but it is true. We have a huge triple-bagger on our riding lawn mower and we collect grass clippings and use them as mulch or in the compost pile. I think the reason they don't blow away is that, due to the moisture content in the grass, the clippings pack down together and begin decomposing pretty quickly. This might partially explain why they don't blow away. And, in fact, in especially rainy summers like last summer, the grass clippings may pack down TOO MUCH due to their higher water content and form a solid mat that somewhat repels water absorption. Finally, y'all, as wonderful as this whole discussion of hay has been, we have really just scratched the surface. The late organic gardening genius, Ruth Stout, used straw, hay, leaves and other organic materials placed ON TOP of the ground in her gardens and produced monster produce and plants. She was quite famous for the books she wrote about her deep mulching process. I read her books right after I moved to Oklahoma in the winter of 1999 and they greatly influenced the way I garden now. Before I read her books, I only used grass clippings and leaves in the compost piles. Now, I use them as mulch as well. My favorite book of hers is the one called "The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book". I think that Pat Lanza's lasagna gardening technique is merely a layered improvement of Ruth Stout's methods, and I greatly admire Pat Lanza, enjoy her books and have learned much from her also. And, before you even ask, I do gather leaves in the fall and winter months and use them as mulch and in the compost pile, similar to the way I use hay and straw in the spring and summer. To keep the leaves from blowing around, I shred them first and then wet them down with the hose as soon as I put them down on a bed. They decompose beautifully and really help enrich the soil. In a good year, when I have time to collect a lot of leaves (we have about 10 acres of wooded land in our 14.4 acre plot) in the fall and winter months, I will mulch every bed with them, and top dress the lawn with a thin layer of them. If I have any left, I save them over the winter in black garbage bags with a few holes poked in the bags to facilitate good air movement. By spring, the leaves in those bags will have decomposed into leaf mold and I can use it wherever it is needed. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Ruth Stout's methods

miesenbacher I havn't seen any pictures of your container grow outs, why is that? I guess you haven't noticed. Do you think I haven't done it? I have a veritable container garden on my deck of five-gallon SWCs that includes tomatoes. These are the two New Big Dwarfs I'm growing this year soon after being set out: Red Robin last year: Celebrity last year: Planted Rutgers determinates in 5 gallon SWCs two years ago. Three years ago planted four determinates in 5 gallon SWCs. Four years ago, planted at least four, maybe six, full-sized indeterminates in same 5-gallon SWCs. Very unhappy with them. For those plant-roots, the container size was too much like Chinese foot-binding. The topic of this thread was growing in a 5-gal bucket. Not, what is the best size container to grow in! Well, no, not exactly. Here was the question: My question is - should I do it in 2 steps - ie - move it into a medium size container, and then when it is bigger into the bucket? I have read that plants should not be in a container that is too big, don't know if that applies in this case. So this long thread progressed from there, including a discussion of container sizes for various tomato plant-sizes. I'll say it again. I grow determinates in five-gallon containers, just not indeterminates, which don't do as well as in the open earth. But people can grow tomatoes in anything they want -- they may not HAVE any open earth for indeterminates so choose to grow them in five gallon containers. In those circumstances, I'd grow them in containers, too, though I'd find a larger container than a five-galloner for most indeterminates to support the massive root system of a large mature plant.