wbonesteel, I don't blame you for being sick of petunias. I imagine I would have gotten sick of them under similar circumstances. The Laura Bush petunias are generally the only petunias I grow. They are derived from a native petunia and tolerate heat like nothing else I've ever seen in the petunia world. I cut them back hard in mid-summer and they rebound with a huge flush of blooms. When I grew traditional petunias, they always began to struggle with the heat beginning in late June. Laura Bush petunias laugh at the heat. I have a great appreciation for anything that tolerates our typical July and August heat with no issues, even when not irrigated. Every year when the petunias begin appearing in regular stores (often as early as February here), I want some but then I don't buy them. I know that if I am patient, the Laura Bush petunias will start blooming in late February or early March and will outlast the standard types you buy at nurseries. I used to grow Wave petunias from seed but stopped growing them because the Laura Bush petunias were so much more heat and drought-tolerant. The little flying insects adore them, so they are great for attracting pollinators to the garden. I grow a ridiculous amount of watermelons. I currently have about 12 plants in the ground but have 12 or 15 more to plug into gaps in the garden. I grow mini Refrigerator sized melons because the large ones produce more melon than we can eat at one time. I generally grow some of my melons on trellises and on the garden fence because that keeps the melons safe from pill bugs and sow bugs. The rest roam around wherever they choose. I often underplant okra with melons. The okra gives the melons enough shade to help prevent the fruit from getting sunburned and the melons keep the ground cooler under the okra, like a living mulch. With excess melons, we either give them away or I get out the melon ball scoop and make melon balls, which I then freeze in freezer bags. If you eat them when they are only half-thawed, they aren't mushy and the flavor is terrific either way. I also make a chilled melon soup from both muskmelons and watermelons. I've even dehydrated strips of melons, but once you remove the water, the flavor is too sweet and I didn't care for it, so don't dehydrate them any more. The last two summers have been really hard on our poultry. We lost quite a few chickens during 112-115 degree days in 2011 when I was gone to wildfires a lot and wasn't home to monitor their conditions. After coming home from fires and finding them dead, I started leaving a misting system on for them when I left, had fans running in the chicken coops, and fed them watermelons, cantaloupes and Armenian cucumbers daily in an effort to help them stay hydrated. So, at our house, it is hard to have too many melons or cukes because I always can feed them to the chickens. I haven't lost a single chicken to heat since I implemented the misting and melons. They always had plentiful fans for air movement and lots of water, but in 2011 it wasn't enough. I've noticed when I have the misting system on that all sorts of birds from hummers to cardinals to doves and blue jays come play in the mist right along with the chickens. Having chickens is great for the compost pile, we enjoy the fresh eggs, and I have a built-in excuse to grow all the lettuce, melons and cukes I want because the chickens consume any surplus that is produced. Some people make watermelon rind pickles, but they are not my favorite thing, so I don't make them. I'm usually too wrapped up in tomato canning and pickle-making to worry about the watermelon rinds. Dorothy, I stopped working in the garden long enough yesterday to look inside the broccoli plants and small heads are forming. Hopefully they'll get a chance to get bigger before trying to bolt, but we're in the 90s here and staying in the mid to upper 70s at night, so bolting could occur at any time. I harvested some cauliflower yesterday and have more to harvest today. I'm surprised it has formed mature heads faster than the broccoli, but I planted it a month earlier to give it a chance to make heads and I guess that made the difference. The brussel sprouts are forming but are very slow. If they don't hurry up, we won't get any brussels sprouts, but they were a gamble all along and I never really expect sprouts in spring, though sometimes I get them in fall. We have broccoli worms all over and I don't have time to handpick them so I guess I'll spray the cole crops today with Bt. I don't mind them so much on broccoli plants because I can drop the broccoli heads in saltwater and the worms will float to the surface after a bit, but I don't care for holey cabbage. It will be a good cole crop year if the heat this weekend doesn't cause them to bolt. We have hit the 90s for the last two days and are expected to be in the 90s the next two days so the cole crops are right on the edge, so to speak. If they only produce small heads, I'm okay with that. We put up so much stuff last year that our freezer still has a little of everything left (and a lot of tomatoes) so we'll survive if the cole crops produce poorly, and I'm processing and freezing oodles of snap peas. I hope to finish them up today after the heat drives me inside this afternoon. To collect seeds I like to use nylon knee-high stockings. I just pull them down over the seed head in question. They stick to the plants well so I don't have to worry about high winds blowing them off the seed heads. I'll tie them closed around a plant prone to having pests get into the seed heads---like the hollyhocks which always have some sort of weevil looking things in their seed heads. Dawn

Howdy, southerngurl! Sounds like your brocs are growing correctly--the whole idea of squarefooting is to save resources--like weeding time. They s'posed to shade out weeds as they crowd up. In my broc area, I couldn't find the soil under all that greenery. But when I fanned the leaves gently, I surely could find a fine set of heads and side shoots up through November, when I moved. For me in East Texas, the cabbage family was strictly a fall crop (or a new protected late winter crop, if my fall planting needed replacing). If I were planting them out in Spring, I'd have put plastic over pvc pipe hoops above the bed to keep rain from mucking the soil, and planted the seedlings around the time you started yours--but you are probably a bit cooler than we are for a bit longer. We will hope your broccoli forms heads before it does bolt from the increasing heat, anyway! (You might try nibbling on young leaves, too....) You might try planting broccoli and other cabbage family crops again in the Fall. That gives much better growing conditions for these cool-weather cropsin the South. Mild fall days give the young plants a good start, and then the crisp fall/winter weather encourages everything to grow a fine head, followed by either side shoots or another, smaller head for many varieties. Your onions may also appreciate some shade come June, although you are probably cooler than we are down here in Zones 8-10. I'll see if I can find a nice program that helps plan veggie production per zone--if it is still around, I'll put the URL up for us to bookmark.

What size are the buds when they begin to open. Broccoli is supposed to bolt. We eat the flower heads, but are supposed to pick them before the flowers open. It broccoli is stunted as a seedling ( most common getting rootbound) it will button. (The heads only get 25-50 mm in diameter.) The size of the flower head is dependent on the growing conditions. All flower heads will flower as they reached maturity.

It is showing heat stress and probably is overdone. otherwise looks normal. Mine looks like that late in the season. Just harvest earlier to minimize the yellowing.