Plums have been a continual disappointment to me. I'm about ready to chop them all down. I have Opal and Green Gage in the ground, but they don't seem to want to grow. I had a beautiful Toka tree, but it never bore fruit and just up and died a couple of springs back. Ptitsin #5 and Brookgold (I suspect was mislabeled and is really Brookred) will grow and survive the winters OK here -- but they either bloom too early or fruit too late, and are aphid magnets. Frankly, they're not worth the space they take up. I've tried Black Ice about five different times, because I heard it's hardy to zone 3b and fruits earlier in the season. But it always winter kills here. We are supposedly in zone 4 under the newest classification, but I have a hard time believing it. I grow a variety of apples, pears, and sour cherries ... even got a few apricots last year. But I've come to the conclusion that this is just a tough area to try to grow plums.

Hi All, I'm posting this again: I wrote the following for Mark and everyone over on another forum, but I know some people don't go there. Hopefully this answers a few questions and if makes a few questions arise, great. It is always good to work the kinks out in advance. The cottage is very easy to get to because it is the same exit and direction as Beaver Island State Park. The cottage has lots of space. People can park on the front yard as long as it stays fairly dry like it has been. There is a lot of street parking too. The back yard is huge. You can easily fit a few hundred people. There is a covered porch that accomodates quite a few people. The garage is also clean and normally is filled with tables for parties. There is also a wooden swingset and toys for kids. Beyond the backyard is woods with hiking paths which is still part of the property. There is a fire pit. The cottage is like a small ranch with full kitchen and a couple of bathrooms. There are lots of excess tables and chairs, a couple grills, most all supplies needed for a party. I was envisioning a party advertised here, on GW, and invite local friends we know, but not outside of that being that it is private property. So it would be a party for growers to celebrate their harvest with other gardeners, not people looking for an event to attend. I believe this is how CHOPTAG began. People would bring a dish to eat or other supplies like pop if they chose not to make food, and tomatoes they grew for a tasting. We could vote on them, maybe even by categories. Of course, I will be stealing any ideas I can from the CHOPTAG tasting.(I am going to their party.) Remy

Paul, the best thing for you to do is to grow Black Plum and your Purple PLum at the sane time in the same season and see if you see any differences. I've grown Black Plum and it is a very dark color, and even more so when grown in southern areas. Purple means pink to many folks and purple was the word used to describe pink fruits years ago starting in the late 1800's, as in Prudens Purple, which is Pink, Eva Purple Ball, which is pink, and many more. So do try comparing the two under the same conditions. Carolyn

Sadly, the 2019 growing season is winding down here in North Carolina and it's time for an update. Please note that many of my earlier posts in this thread were under username "Zonefive". I updated my profile to display "Zone 7b" when I moved south a couple of years ago. I only grew six mini pepper plants this year and they were from F5 seeds. Two of them produced fruit resembling the original fruit purchased at Aldi in early 2014. The seeds for these two were taken from a mixed collection of mini peppers harvested last year. The other four were taken from what appears to have been a single orange mini. I say that because there are very few seeds remaining in the seed packet labeled "orange mini 2018". The plants resulting from these orange mini seeds produced some aberrations. Two produced much larger (3-6 inch), broader, thicker skinned, sometimes multi-lobed, red fruit. The other two produced slightly larger (3-4 inch), thicker skinned, red fruit. One of which produced peppers that contained a fair amount of capsaicin, which was quite a surprise. The ripe fruit of this plant showed a slight amount of corking as is seen in jalapenos. I suspect that the single orange mini harvested for seed last year had been cross pollinated, resulting in the unusual fruit this season. Last year I grew several pepper varieties, including large bell and jalapeno, so there was plenty of pollen available. Perhaps a bee made its way through various pepper plants and then happened upon a flower on the orange mini plant that had just opened. Its activity there deposited pollen from several different plants resulting in the variations found this year. I plan on saving seed from some of these plants, especially the spicy one. The fruit of that plant retained the sweetness and crispness of the original orange mini, but in a larger, thicker fleshed, red fruit with a "kick" at the stem end. It will be interesting to see what the offspring of this plant produce next year. I don't expect too much variation since both the mother and the suspected father produce fruit similar in size and shape. Here's a picture of a couple of the spicy not-so-minis, which I call SweetFire. These two are about 3 inches long, not as long and not as broad at the stem as many were earlier in the season. If anyone is interested in growing out some of these SweetFire peppers, let me know and I'll send some seeds to you. Maybe we can make this a group effort by selecting promising offspring each season and sharing the seed. After several generations we may have a stable plant.