I got an email a few years ago in early December as well as a question from a friend at the pool about saving gourd seeds. “Is it OK to eat squash that has mixed traits of different squash in the same ...

Is it true that if you plant hot peppers on the same row as sweet peppers, the sweet pepper plants will cross with the hot peppers and become hot? — William I get variations on this question all the ...

Q: This summer, several of my squash and cucumbers were deformed and tasted funny. I think that they were cross pollinating each other. What can I do to prevent it next year? — Jean, Tulsa. A: Cross ...

So, if cross-pollination does occur between a sweet and hot pepper, it does not affect the fruit produced, but may affect the characteristics of the next generation grown from the seeds in the fruit.

Some gardening folklore actually has some factual or logical basis. One example has to do with members of the cucurbit family — squash, melons, pumpkins and cucumbers. Have you ever heard this ...

Tickling your tomato blossoms and brushing your squash flowers probably aren’t regular tasks on your gardening to-do list, but it turns out that hand pollination, in league with natural processes, can ...