Granddad i have seen that picture of your longbean trellis extension before. What would happen if you didn't add the extension? Would the beans just start to cascade back down? Would it affect yield? i am very curious! Cyrus gardener please contact me privately through my Gardenweb member page-thanks! zensojourner i do not mean to highjack your thread! So far i think no one has mentioned pumpkin or watercress. Watercress is a classic veggie side dish at Korean restaurants here. Thais enjoy pumpkin which is not like the jack o'lantern Americans are familiar with. More like a winter squash or even more like a Japanese Kabocha. Check out this website i just surfed into yesterday, they sell Thai vegetable seeds although they are adapted more to a tropical climate and i am not sure about your zone. i have not ordered from them so i cannot comment on product or service. Kaffir lime is pretty much a must for Thai food. it is not frost-proof but it should do OK in a pot if you suffer from that affliction ; ) i have heard that this can be ordered from FourWinds if you cannot get it locally. Cilantro, Mint, Thai Basil have all been mentioned but if you'd like to get really authentic try herbs Culantro and Rau Ram. Oh and green papaya salad is pretty much classic Thai food. You can use unripe solo papaya but the real green papaya is large, long and used primarily as a vegetable. i've been looking for a seed source myself. Sawatdi ; ) Here is a link that might be useful: Kilohana farms

Hi, I grew 3 massive sweet basil last year on my balcony in a file box. I let one go to seed and hacked it down and ate it...that left me with 2 massive sweet basils. I grew these in a box that is barely bigger than the common manilla file., slightly taller but not much wider. I would say it used about 4 gal of dirt; tops.It was also rectangular.. lots of room to freely spread without running into the neighbor too much. I used quite a bit of compost a third to almost almost half, then i also used potting mix from my garden shop ( black gold) and perlite and rock bits mixed in real good for drainage... I drilled several holes on the bottom and a few on the side near the bottom for rain drainage and overflow control... and also grew a bit of thyme in there that did real well untill it got too much shade from the basils.It billowed over the edge and came back to abundance. I planted my basil at about 8 inches tall with 2 or 3 really good sets of leaves, I pinched it all the time, hacked off peices for recipes all summer... It grew in that dumb file box to over 4 feet -not in bolt. In bolt it was over my head.( i am short though). I am doing the same this year. It was delicious. I think the rectangular shape of the box did wonders for them.

I think the posts may be missing because GW has been having some technical issues lately.. I may have jumped the gun on this because besides the leaf curl damage caused by thrips, they also leave little brown strips/spots from rasping the leaf surface with their mouthparts....a small amount of the pests on a plant may not show this for a while, but the population explodes rapidly. We see thrips everyday in the greenhouse, but plants are usually treated before the rasping damage, but not before the leaf curling or they are spotted on sticky cards first placed near a crop. For example I got them on my peppers and tomato crops, as did many other student crops, but all where treated before signs of visable brown spotting/striping....BTW I'm graduating this month! Wooohoooo!!! Very strange my basil never looks like this in the garden and it's windy where I live. On a day the wind don't blow you notice LOL! Vera

You can leave the basil in ground with a couple leaves and give it a shot--that may be cutting it back too far, but it's worth a try. Or, there's enough season left for a second crop, since it does grow so fast. Chives--yup, cut about 1-2" above ground (they're shallow rooted, so you don't want to pull on them). They'll keep coming and coming. Harvest the whole clump, or just a few leaves if you only want a little. Chives are perennial--you won't have to reseed them, they'll keep coming.