My Big Fat Greek Squash

...ry time I visit my mom, her Greek neighbor pops over the fence to offer me seeds and plants. He visits Greece each summer and comes back with seeds for plants whose names he can’t translate into English. As a result I always have a few mystery Greek vegetables growing in the garden. This spring he gave me a squash seedling he had propagated. It grew into a massive vine and produced two winter squashes whose weight exceeded the capacity of my kitch...

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Physalis pruinosa a.k.a. “Ground Cherry”

...iced at a staggering $3.99–a lot considering the package only contained 12 seeds. You can be certain that we’ll be doing some seed saving on this one if we get a successful crop! The googling required to sort out the many common names of Physalis pruinosa revealed an intriguing source of seeds, Trade Winds Fruit, located in Chula Vista. Trade Winds carries a number of nightshade family plants including four from the Physalis genus and even somethi...

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Newspaper Seed Starting Pots

...We started our summer herb and vegetable seeds yesterday using the method in this video. It’s labor intensive but it beats having to buy pots. Happy planting . . . UPDATE: We had some problems with these and have shifted back to old plastic pots for starting seeds. Read more here....

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The Genetic Diversity of Watermelons

...d up at the National Heirloom Exposition. Note the vibrant (and tasty) red seeds. Navaho watermelons are sometimes called “winter melons” since they can be stored for a few months. Another watermelon I tasted at the Exposition was a yellow fleshed variety called Orangeglo. It was probably the sweetest and tastiest watermelon I’ve ever eaten. The problem with supermarket watermelons is not due to the seedless vs. seeded issue. Seedless watermelons...

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