Viewing comments posted by poisondartfrog

Provided a continuous harvest all season in large containers with sapling supports. They were very delicious with meaty texture and overtly beanie flavor. I did not prepare any of these as shuck beans, but they are sturdy enough to use that way.

Only two tomato varieties from this year's crop are still producing and ripening full sized fruits with little or no insect or disease damage. The most prolific of these is Limbaugh's Legacy Potato Top. The plant is large and vigorous and the tomatoes are, too. The shoulders of some fruits exhibit considerable cracking, but the tomatoes are so large that discarding the top half inch is no hardship.

Seeds germinated readily and grew into a small-medium sized shrub festooned with golden yellow buds and flowers. Reports of malodorous foliage were confirmed when I handled the plant to collect seeds. Collecting the seeds was unsettling for this ophidiophobic gardener. The seed pods rattled ominously, causing me to look around more than once to make sure I was alone.

Seeds germinated quickly, but the plant grew more slowly and took longer to bloom than many Cuphea species I've worked with. All parts of the plant, with the exception of the roots, are extremely sticky. That, in combination with fine hairs on the stems, traps water droplets produced from rain, or even high humidity or fog. The color is a rich magenta-leaning purple, and it has proved to be irresistible to hummingbirds. I grew it as an annual, but it is perennial to zone 9 and I expect to move it into the greenhouse or house to winter over.

Palmate foliage is pretty and not as delicate as it looks, climbing vigorously once established and scrambling up a support or tree. Tendrils wrap around supports but are not heavy enough or tenacious enough to cause damage. I grew some in a hanging pot under a deciduous tree and they seem to co-exist nicely. The example in the ground has grown taller and more vigorously than the potted one and with larger leaves, even though direct sown much later. The flowers are nondescript but the colorful fruits are very attractive and so is the foliage. They have done equally well in mostly shade and half-day shade. Fruit is not edible.

I grew this in a container. The high yielding plant is about two feet tall. Tasty peppers are thin walled and sweet with just a little heat. I'm using it for salads and stir fry. It is advertised as a good stuffing pepper, but I prefer sturdier varieties for stuffing. French heirloom.

My favorite bean, more flavorful and meaty than the more commercial White Half Runner. They may not bear quite as vigorously, but are well worth that small difference. Good fresh or as "Shuck" beans, which are also known as "Leather Britches."

Sowed one seed from J.L. Hudson which germinated in about two weeks using the baggie method and the vine is growing rapidly. At this rate I'm afraid I won't have room to winter it over for next season.

Huge beefsteaks on very large plants, beautiful color when ripe but not a pretty tomato overall in my garden. If I had discovered the Tomato Hornworm earlier they might have looked better. The flavor is nondescript.

I'm growing this dwarf in a large pot, but I think a 5 gallon pot would have been adequate. The foliage is dense, compact, and darker green than most tomatoes. The plentiful fruit is tart and dull orange when ripe. I like the acidity, but for those who only like sweet tomatoes this is a poor choice.

Green shouldered in my garden, fruits are small to medium sized and have a rich old fashioned tomato flavor. They are brownish when ripe, plants are indeterminate and have good fruit set. On the down side, other tomatoes in my garden are still pretty clean and free of disease. This one is showing signs of blight.

Large oval cherries in big trusses, quite sweet but with a background of real tomato flavor and tartness.

Some of the first blooms to open are single; subsequent blooms are pleasantly double. The fragrance is slightly spicy and rose sweet.

The only tomato in my garden this year that is cracking as it ripens, it is smaller than I expected with an acidic flavor that is very "tomatoey." As with other "blue" tomatoes, the dark pigment appears on the part of the fruit with the greatest exposure to sunlight. For me, this blue's flavor is superior to the several others I have tried.

N. paniculata is not the showiest Nicotiana, but certainly an interesting one. Long tubes of an inch or slightly more end in bright green corona arranged in panicles well above the foliage. The foliage is attractive with large, slightly scalloped leaves in blue green.

Over the course of the summer the flower color gradually changed from bright red to bright red orange.

Quite hot, creamy, smoky, nutty flavor.

The small flowered plants are vigorous and set many two person sized melons. In my garden the flavor was sweet with a slight bitter aftertaste and otherwise flavorless.

Heavy fruit set of small cherry tomatoes, pale yellow to near white when ripe. Very sweet.

My seeds came from Baker Creek. This variety is highly variable as to size and color, ranging from 3 inches across to nearly eight inches across and from orange red through scarlet. Most are semi-cactus flowered, but some are not at all quilled.