On 29/05/2014 10:46 PM, Pat Kiewicz wrote:
Higgs Boson said:
On Tuesday, May 27, 2014 11:42:40 PM UTC-7, Fran Farmer wrote:
On 28/05/2014 12:23 AM, Moe DeLoughan wrote:

On 5/26/2014 11:30 PM, SteveB wrote:



And some gardeners prefer older seeds too - pumpkin is one seed that

I've been told a few times does better if the seed is older rather than

fresh.

That sounds wildly counter-intuitive. Did your interlocutors say why?

I've noticed that sometimes the plants that grow from my older squash seeds
are more likely to skip the first flush of male flowers and get right to producing
female flowers. Most particularly this seems to be true of the C. pepo types
(zuchinni, summer squash, delicata, acorn).

That's interesting. I must pay more attention next time I plant older
seeds of the cucurbita family. One thing that does occur to me is that
in Australia what we call 'pumpkin', USians call 'winter squash' so
Higgs might still need to seek a definitive answer to his query.

I'm assuming that the gardeners who told me about older pumpkin seeds
found out what they were telling me based on experience just as you did
with your summer squash. One of these gardeners also told me that dog
poo was a superb fertiliser under lemon trees. Can't say I've ever been
tempted to try that one but since he was a gardener who worked for many
years at Government House then he should have had some knowledge and skills.