Nick, That's an interesting test you did. Only three pumpkins passed and no summer squash. I think your test may be unnecessarily severe. For example, I didn't grow any summer squash this year, but last year I grew a single Costata Romanesco (from Johnny's) quite successfully. The plant became huge, with really big leaves. It had long vines which I trained up onto a concrete re-mesh support to conserve garden space. It had very good tasting zucchini squash and an abundance of male blossoms for squash blossom recipes. Deep fat fried in a batter is my favorite, but some people like to "stuff" them. Squash blossoms are considered a delicacy in restaurants. I haven't grown any winter squash yet, but in past years I have grown at least a dozen other varieties of summer squash successfully, with some special care, but not an awful lot. I feed them liquid fertilizer using a soluble formula like Miracle-Gro Tomato Food and I hand-pick any squash bugs that appear. Fortunately I haven't had problems with Squash Vine Borers, but if I do, I will probably split the vine to kill the borers and toss the vines on the compost pile. I start an early crop indoors under overdriven fluorescent lights and set them out in a fairly advanced stage about the first of June. Some people have reported success with successive plantings, and I plan to try that next year. That worked well with our pole beans and pole peas this year. As fall approaches, powdery mildew inevitably becomes a serious problem and if frost doesn't kill your plants the powdery mildew will. Next year I will probably spray a lot of a product called GreenCure® to fight the powdery mildew. This year it is working fairly well on our tomatoes, eggplants, and zinnias. As that link shows, GreenCure is effective against powdery mildew and a bunch of other diseases as well. It is completely non-toxic and safe. I use about 1½ tablespoons of GreenCure in a gallon of water. I need to get a better sprayer, to do a better job of covering the bottom sides of the leaves. With GreenCure, hopefully my squash will survive the powdery mildew a little better next year. MM

I decided I am going to have to invest in some vegetable gardening books. I have flower books everywhere. I do have several sets of those tall 5 shelf wire/coated racks in my garage and one in my laundry/pantry. yahoo! I did something right. i will get a humidity/temp thing. Because I would sure hate to do all this work for food and then loose it all. Nematodes. Yes I have been reading about those. I was thinking about getting some as well. I have a tree hat has a lot of caydeds and what a mess as well as they are damaging the grass. I think it would help in general to have that cycle of good v. bad to get rid of unwanted creepy crawlies. I was looking at some potatoes at Ronnigers.com I think I will try the normal red, yellow that I eat all the time but I think I might try this one called purple majesty 70-80 days maturing. It is supposed to have almost twice the antioxidants as other potatoes. Which in my health would be a plus. I read that it is sometimes best to try a few types of potatoes etc to see which one will grow best for you in your area. I thought I may do that with a couple of things so I will have at least some vegetable to put up. An not leaving it to chance on just one type and it not grow well here. I thank you all so much for all this wonderful information. I have been writing all this down so I won't need to ask the same thing over. You know I was thinking (sad moment) last night that 25 years ago I could never find very much to talk to my grandfather about. He was native american and very quite. He always had a huge garden (16 children). Now I wish I could turn back time and ask so many questions. Thanks' Bonnie

The Maxifort F1 I used last season was from De Ruiters Seeds. Viability - 100%, and extremely vigorous. Germination in 48 hours. I see that other companies are starting to offer them as well. The F2 seed that I saved had 100% germination as well, but lacked the extreme vigor that the F1 had shown. MAXIFORT F1 While these F2 may still have many of the disease resistant traits, It's the vigor of the F1 in which I'm most interested. Production in general, was better on the grafted plants, noting also that they began setting fruit up to a couple of weeks earlier as well. Most markedly improved - a Brandywine, least difference, a Cherokee Purple. Admittedly, due to the small numbers of plants overall, that had non-grafted counterparts for comparison, this could have been more scientific. None the less, from what Ive seen, Im very encouraged. In regard to taste, I couldnt notice any difference between grafted and non-grafted fruits. I forgot to taste any of the Maxifort berries. Here is part of another post with some grafting tips I made at another forum; -I have played around with some grafting techniques, and have found top grafting (tube graft) to be the most fool-proof for me. Smaller seedlings seem easier to handle and care for, with less requirements for time and space. Youll know relatively soon if youve been successful or not. Many of the sites Ive read, put a lot of emphasis on sanitation, which I found to be one of the least critical factors in the success of a graft taking. Not that there is anything wrong with sterile tools and work area, but as I practiced more, all that went pretty much out the window and my results continued to improve. Most important, seemed to be that the scion and rootstock were well matched in terms of size (diameter) and cut (angle). Next, that they be kept in relative high humidity during recovery. A well done graft might show no sign of wilting, while a bad attempt will wilt severely and maybe not recover. In matching tops and bottoms, an accurate planting schedule should be determined. The idea is for rootstocks and scions to reach grafting size at the same time. Ive seen sights that recommend planting Maxifort rootstock prior to the scion stock, which would have been disastrous for me, as every cultivar Ive matched with it has needed about a two week head start against this vigorous variety. You can test germinate the varieties you are using to get a time frame, and work backwards from there. Some sites state that the cut must be made below the cotyledons or some such nonsense. I get better results making the cuts at the points where the diameters best match for size. Just be vigilant for any unwanted suckers below the graft, as they grow true to the rootstock. This would be undesirable for large scale growers, but simple enough for a backyard gardener. If however, you want two cultivars on one plant, this is probably the easiest method to use. As for tools, for making cuts, Ive found the thinness of double edge razor refills make the cleanest cuts. Theyre cheap, and worked better than my Exacto, or any thing else Ive found for that matter. For the patch, Ive tried clips, clamps, tapes, and even Liquid-Bandaid. By far, the easiest to use for me, were the silicon grafting clips. Latex tubing will also work. I found some at the medical supply shop down the road for $1.99/ft. They would even sell it by the inch, but for versatility and ease of getting everything in place and secured, the silicon clips are the way to go. For a recovery chamber, as a hobby gardener, Ive found an upside down aquarium in my indoor seed starting area to be ideal to maintain a humid environment for the 4-5 days necessary to heal. For larger clef and side grafts, Ive had some success using 3M Nexcare surgical tapes and Popsicle-stick splints. Tomatoes are pretty resilient, it surprises me what they can endure. Good luck, George. http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/graf...dsgrafting.htm ohio state info http://www.deruiterseeds.com/page/Co...g_instructions de ruiter info top grafting

Hi Gardeners, The following seeds were offered to exchange: Harvested tomatoes in 2010 506 bush Anchka Anna Aasa Arthur Fowler Aucuba Aunt RubyâÂÂs German Green Aventuniai Balkon wonder Barbaniaka Baselbieter R�teli Belle Angevine Bellstar Better Bush Biaj loob Big Beef Big Pink Black brandywine Black plum Blue fruit Bolivian Wild Bosnian yellow Brad Gail strain Brad Heart Shaped Budai T�rpe Budenovka Burkan lapu Burpee long keeper Bursztyn Businka Caprici Carbon Chincha Chocolate Stripes Citrina Clear Pink Early Coroica CowlickâÂÂs Brandywine De Berao Black De Berao Giant De Berao Orange Ditmarsher Dr.Lyle Dudesti big red Dulcia Earl of Edgecomb Early Swedish Early Wonder Enola Esther Hess Yellow Cherry GeorgeâÂÂs Greek Beefsteak Giant Purple Tomatillo Giroc Big Pink Glecker 670 Preserve Goldkrone Graf Bathany Green Bell Pepper Green Sausage HeartâÂÂs Delight Black Hillbilly Himber rose Hua Chi Hango prolific Hungarian Giant Hurma Husky Gold Illionis Pride Italian Stallion Ivory Egg Jagodka Japanese Red Trifele JImâÂÂS Old Keeper JoyceâÂÂs Strain Karla KBX Kumato Large Paste Leschuk Orange LimbaughâÂÂs Potato Top Litchi ( Morelle De Balbis ) LudmillaâÂÂs Red Plum Lyc.Macrocarpum Negra Magnif Olympica Argentin Malakhitovaya Shkatulka (tasty) Malinowy Ozarowsky Manalucie Marmande jaune Matina Mc.ClintockâÂÂs Big Pink ( giant ) Mellow Yellow Mikado Blanche Negib New Zealand Pear ( big ) Northern light Nyagous OSU BLUE Quisenberry ( giant ) Reine De Saint Marthe Rio Fuego Ropreco Paste Rose Sachaknaja Shah Mikado White Siberian Gold Pear Spudakee Storgul Strawberry Striped pepper Striped Romain Stupice Tamina TappyâÂÂs Heritage The Miracle BPF THRSKA GORA Giant ( 2 lb ) Tlacolula Trip L Crop Val Oxheart Viva LindseyâÂÂs White Kentucky Heirloom Wapsipinicon White Beauty White Furry Boar White Queen Wild Peru WinâÂÂs All Xuxa Yellow 1884 Pink Heart Yellow Date Yellow Goldfish Yellow Goldkrone Yellow Paste prolific Plum Yellow Zebra Zlatava Peppers harvested in 2010 Buran Floral gem Inca red Lemon drop Big Jim DragonâÂÂs Claw Criolla Sella African Pequin Goat Horn Sweet Chocolate King of the North Mini Yellow Nora Stavris Schoko paprika Keystone Bell Indian PC-1 Cuban Cherry Santa Fe Peperoncino Piment Hungarian peppers Karmen Big,sweet,red Cserko hot,red ,cherry-shaped, acidified high Senator Big,indet. thick-fleshed fruits, elongated, tapered,150 gr. Piknik Pritamin red sweet 120gr. Thick wall Faludi ind.big bush, green,100 gr.,lighthot Amy thick wall white, sweet 100gr.,red ripe Cekker indet.,white, sweet, Aranyeso det.,thin wall, sweet, white Cecei indet.,white, sweet, Feher kos indet.,20 cm, white, sweet Feherozon det.white,sweet,80 gr., Sweet Apple indet.sweet, white,flagging, 50 gr. Cat yellow yellow, hot, for drying Szentesi Kosszarvu indet.,sweet, 20 cm long, ZKI 11 Keszthelyi indet.,50 gr.,white,sweet Rekord indet.,lightgreen,...