knittlin, as far as I could tell they came true to their parents. I cannot tell with the chickpeas since they have not even flowered yet. I also forgot I did plant the common (pantry) black eye peas a couple of years ago, and that was also very good. It was the first time I had them as shellies and they were delicious, too bad it takes so many of them to make a pound of beans. Lately I try not to plant from the same species close together, but with only 1/4 of an acre I cannot separate my species completely. However, I have many flowering bee attracting herbs (cilantro, mint, marjoram, thyme, oregano, rosemary, sage, lavender, borage), citrus flowers from the lemons, lots and lots of roses, still have tomatoes and eggplant flowering too. I have lots of bees! I put barrier crops all over the place, but with such small space I must have had bees transport DNA from one bean to another....bees have a radius of travel that is over a mile, don't they? I have not noticed any obvious crosses, except at first I was growing three varieties of P. vulgaris pole beans together, and the wax beans sometimes got a little purple tinge probably from the purple pole beans. I am not trading those seeds since I have only barely enough to replant (a bug got in the bean envelope and destroyed/ate a bunch of them, darn!). I am making an effort to only plant different species of pole beans together now. I also figure other gardeners will have similar problems unless they have a huge farm, and getting 1-2 % or so half breeds does not bother me.

Speaking for myself, I don't mind repeating previous discussions, particularly on issues as important as botulism risks. Even with Google, it can be extremely difficult sometimes to find pertinent threads. I usually have pretty good luck finding previous threads and linking to them, but I think that's largely due to the fact that I've posted on those threads in the past and can fine-tune the search by recalling some specific term or oddball bit of information that appeared in a post. Too bad we don't have an FAQ for these things. They're vital questions no matter how many times they're asked. I remove the stem area and also peel fruits (or as with tomato sauce I may cook to the boil then strain out peels with a food mill). If you think about it, the stem is a scaly area which provides all kinds of cracks and crevices for bacteria to lurk. It can be difficult to clean thoroughly enough to get every spoilage/contamination agent out. I'm also one of those who generally removes both ends of cucumbers, in part because by the time I've verified which end is the blossom I can have both ends trimmed and move on. There is one long-fermented dill recipe I make that calls for leaving a bit of the stem. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, but on the whole I prefer to remove as from my perception, there's less likelihood of scum formation. Not scientific, just personal observation. Carol

Same here, lotsa flowers, no beans last year till cooler weather came. Then they went crazy and made so many beans, I still have over a full quart jar of the dried beans! A few of the beans that fell to the ground wintered over and came up this spring. I was kinda surprised about that! But if you dry them, be sure to give them a LONG time to dry. I tried cooking some and I thought they were just OK. I mean, if I was really, really hungry I'd eat the cooked dried bean. DH is annoyingly picky about food and he ate a little bitty bowl and then didn't eat any more. So I had the rest of the pot to do something with and I didn't want to eat them every day for a week. So I poured off the liquid and saved it to add to soup, then pureed the beans in the Cuisinart, added chili seasoning, cooked ground beef, onion and green pepper and rolled them up in flour tortillas. Poured chili sauce over all and topped with sharp cheddar cheese and baked. LOL, DH had two helpings. I haven't tried 'em as green beans because I was a little put off by how hairy the pods were. I have Insuk's planted this year and they are blooming profusely. BTW, is there a difference, tastewise, between Insuks and Scarlet Runner? They look the same to me. --Ilene

Well well... I have a few days off, and was reorganizing my seed storage. All of my seed has been stored in various boxes & drawers, a system which has become ever more cluttered as my collection expanded. I've been wanting for years to transfer the collection into metal file cabinets, to make them easier to access & protect from rodents; but the cost was always prohibitive. Until yesterday, when DW found an incredible deal on used 4-drawer filing cabinets, 4 for $85, in really good shape. So today, I have been transferring the seeds. To get to the point of this story... as I was pulling some papers from a drawer, a coin envelope with seeds fell out. It was "Ralph's Italian"! So apparently I did not plant all of the seed George sent in 2004. The seed is very old, and may be dead; but I'll plant all of it indoors next year, using old seed protocols. If anything germinates, I'll post an update on this thread. Guess I've got a dog in this hunt after all. ;-)