Well, based on my gardening experience for many many years, you're getting a perfectly normal crop. I don't know why the little short chubbies appear. My guess is it has something to do with pollination. But, they do appear regularly, and, as you say, they taste just as good as the pretty ones. I wouldn't worry over much about it.

I honestly don't know why humans expect plants to grow down hill and away from light. Nature dictates the opposite. We plant things in the shade of the house where the strongest light is that reflected off the wall of the house next door, then wonder WHY they all grow toward the neighbor's house. We plant expecting them to grow down hill, away from the strongest light at the top of the hill, then wonder why they don't cascade down the slope. Reduced light elongates plants due to their need for the light. They "stretch" to get out in to the light where they can photosynthesize food for themselves. Types which aren't generally considered "climbing" can stretch greatly so they resemble climbers. More Arctic hardy types, when grown in milder, longer season climates, can attain monstrous proportions and often take to the trees. It's natural. Prickles are often viewed as armature, protection, when in fact, they are more climbing mechanisms. Roses don't "twine" or "vine" around supports but must be tied in place or left to follow the sun until their prickles snag on to a limb or other opportunistically available support. Given that support, they lengthen rather than thicken. The greater thickness permits them to support themselves until some support is found. We probably consider their growth into and through trees as "tangled messes", but isn't that what virtually all natural landscapes are? We prune to separate plants, Nature doesn't. Kim

Stefanb8, remember, in the War of the Roses, the flowers were white & red? Red comes from reudh, the Indo-Eur root---it's ruadh in Irish, ruber or rufus in Latin, erythros in Greek, & rot in German, the close cousin of English. Rose, the plant, comes from Latin rosa, which is from Greek rhodon, which comes from Indo Eur. wrdho--thorn or bramble. The wild ones were native to Persia---"warda." So the original word for rose plants was referring to the thorns, not the flowers! Pink, the color, on the other hand comes from the plant, pinks (dianthus). In their case, besides being pink, they have small flowers and small petals with notched edges---pink is Dutch for small (where pinkie finger comes from) and "pink" meaning to notch, comes from pungere (Latin, to stab), the French piquer, etc. The first reference to pink as a color comes from 1681, "Pink-coloured" meaning the same color as the flower. In the case of the Engl name for this color, it was named for a flower whose name meant either small or notched, or both. I guess it is safe to assume using the word "rose" for a certain shade of pink, came from the Engl. word rose --whose ancestor once meant "thorny"!

shastensis, According to Dr. Bob Zybach of Oregon the old growth in the Northwest was comparable to today's old growth over a century ago in the settlement era. He studied fire history in the state of Oregon and believes most of the trees were second growth when the white man came. Zybach has said reports of Douglas fir in excess of 300 feet are mostly stories that cannot be documented, and he has said that the city of Vancouver BC was a prairie before the white man came. I think his views are the minority opinion. He was a reforestation contractor for 20 years, so I value his input. Most estimates I have seen suggest between 70 and 90% of the biggest and oldest Douglas fir forests have been logged in the past 130 years. In some places like Southern Vancouver Island up to 99% of old growth fir is said to be gone. One need only look at the hundreds of old logging photos of giant fir and cedar to get an idea of how large the lowland forests once grew, and in places like present day Seattle, and Vancouver BC. To deny all of this pretty much tells me one would have to be a lobbyist for the timber industry, but that is just my gut feeling.