You're sure welcome, Cabrita. "The book you mention sounds like a good addition to my library. ... I think I need to learn a bit more about plant sex ;-)" Heh-heh! Seed to Seed explains a whole lot of "the birds and the bees" when it comes to vegetables. ;) It's an excellent book on isolation techniques for saving pure seed. It'll explain in great detail caging, bagging, hand pollinating and all sorts of other things involved in saving pure seed. The best part is it tells you which techniques to use on which plants. EXCELLENT resource for that imho. And it's less than 17 bucks on Amazon. I just put in an order for another one as a friend came over today and I gave her mine. *blush* But that gave me an excuse to buy Great Garden Companions by Sally Cunningham, a book on companion planting that I've been wanting for a while. Gotta' spend $25 to get that free shipping you know. *snicker* "I am confused about caging, how will the bees get in there? then you say hand pollinating. I don't know how to do that. I heard (read) this on the tomato forum too." The bees won't get in there. That's the entire purpose of caging. If you don't cage the ones you want to keep pure, a few bees will visit some Queen Anne's Lace nearby (really, I'd bet money you have it growing near you), pick up some QAL pollen on their legs/hair, land on your carrot blooms on the way back to the hive and deposit some of that QAL pollen on them. Now your carrots are cross pollinated with the QAL. Bummer. And you very well may not be able to tell ~ just avoiding saving seeds from white-rooted carrots won't be enough of a guarantee that they didn't cross since sometimes a cross will look just like one or the other parent, but won't taste or grow like them. Just like humans ~ some people look a whole helluva lot like Mom, but they're not her twin. To keep that from happening, you build cages with some sort of screening on them that will allow air, sun and rain through but not bees. Window screen works nicely on a wood frame, as does light floating row cover on hoops tall enough to keep the cover off the carrot blooms. You cover your carrots with them, a bunch of plants at a time. Here are some pictures of what I'm talking about: Pic 1 Pic 2 ~ second picture on that page And here's a thread with a good picture and lots of info on how to build them. Since there are no bees, you'll have to take their place and hand pollinate. It's as simple as moving pollen from one flower onto another. (Be sure to only do this between plants that are showing the trait you want ~ heat tolerance in this case.) This can be done with a small paintbrush ~ just touch the pollen parts, loading it up with pollen, then touch a bunch of blooms and the pollen will get desposited. Do this all over all the blooms and you're done. Another way is to pick one bloom and use it as the paintbrush, brushing the other blooms with it ~ pick a few different blooms and brush each one on all the other blooms to ensure a good genetic mixup. But if you pick those blooms, that'd be that much less seed you'll get since of course the blooms you've picked and used as your paintbrushes won't go on to set seed. Don't think that you can just avoid that by picking the blooms of the plants that aren't showing heat tolerance and use those ~ you need to use blooms from plants showing the trait you want since their genetic traits are going to be crossed into the other blooms and their resulting seed ~ the blooms you pick are going to be Daddy to your next generation of seed. But in the coming generations when you have hundreds of plants growing out, you may find it so much easier to do it that way that it's well worth sacrificing those blooms. The Seed to Seed book will explain all this in better detail and more accurately than I can. It's really a great book. I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone who wants to save true vegetable seed. I've given away two of them so far and doubt that my third one will stay with me for very long before it gets passed on as well. ;) It's really that good of a book. There's also a book on breeding new vegetable varieties that was recommended to me, but I haven't bought it yet (one of these days...). I can't remember exactly what it's called ~ something like "Breeding Your Own Vegetable Varieties" or something.

Seeker, If you don't have sheer curtains, you might find some at a thrift store or garage sale. Otherwise, tulle netting can be a good option for keeping pests off crops, depending on the size of the pest. Other than lightweight sheer curtains or tulle netting (available at fabric stores), I can't think of any other sort of covering that would be lightweight enough to substitute for floating row covers. Other than covering the plants, you could try to repel the pests. A garlic spray or a hot pepper spray might work. Sometimes repellent sprays work and sometimes they don't. If you need a simple recipe for a garlic-based or hot pepper-based insect repellent, let us know and somebody or several somebodies will post recipes here for you. For any crops bothered by cabbage loopers and imported cabbage worms, there's an organic spray called Bt for short. It is a form of bacteria that only affects that specific group of insects....in this case, you'd need Bt 'Kurstaki' which targets butterfly and moth larvae. There are other forms of Bt that target other pests, including one that targets Colorado Potato Beetles. I'll link an example of one of the Bt caterpillar killers for you. This product is made by many different manufacturers and sold under many different names so just look for a caterpillar killer that has Bt as the active ingredient. Susan, They are one of our earlier signs of spring, though not the first, but not one I'm happy to see. We have had swallowtails around all week (it seems early, but then everything is early this year) and I always am happy to see them. I think slugs and/or snails could/would attack Swiss Chard but here in the land of red river clay, we don't have no stinkin' slugs.....so obviously I've never seen them on my Swiss Chard. I've never seen a slug anywhere on our property since moving here 13 years ago, so I hope I didn't just jinx my garden by saying that. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Example of One Bt 'Kurstaki' Product

I have occasionally met that nirvana which is the skins shooting right off the beets. It doesn't work where there are depressions around the whiskers, or where it grew around a rock, or whatnot, and some just look blandly back at you and say "What?" in that NE, one of the boys way. I don't know if it has to do with Annie's freshness/moisture content equation or not. If I'm in a hurry, and don't want caramelization, I'll roast them skin on and take what slips off as a bonus. Otherwise, I use a potato peeler on them cold, which is easier but more busy work. I've never heard of using the foil to slough off the skin. In my experience, either the skin comes off without effort, or it's peeler time. :)

Lots of flavor, right? I've had to ramp up tray production since we snip a couple trays then add some lemon and bit of feta...DH will eat the entire salad well before dinner so I have to make another. Great food value. Not much need for dressings. Like recipes and different ovens, your humidity and home environment will be different....just getting used to the time under weight and how much water you need... The weight during germination is key. Some friends/co-workers would hear a thump when the rock/weight would roll off onto the floor or counter in the middle of the night. The weight gives good contact with the soil so the roots go down not up and sideways...that may be what your middle tray did. Seed density matters. Start a radish tray with more seed than seems needed. Spread them out. Pack down. Date and label. ( I have a sensitive scale) ...but can eye-ball now with my special scoop tool. My perfect method in my home will not be exactly perfect for others homes. Similar with fermentations and your natural yeast in the air...trouble shooting as always.