Gardeners tend to be the types of people who like to curl up before bed with a good seed catalog and a glass of warm milk. If you are one of those hopeless seed catalog addicts, this is the article for you because it defines some of those fancy terms found in seed catalogs that you never really understood but were afraid to ask your County Extension Agent about.

In case you think I must be brilliant to know all this stuff off the top of my head, I must confess that the information in this article was unabashedly stolen from an article that originally appeared in a publication of the Cooperative Extension Service in Massachusetts and was subsequently transmitted over the "Information Highway" (i.e., the Internet).

Here are the terms:

Gynoecius. This term is derived from Greek roots and means that the plant only has female flowers. The term is only used on those plants that have separate male and female flowers. (Does anyone know what the term is for a plant that only produces male flowers?) If you buy a gynoecius plant you need to find it a husband before you can produce fruit, unless it is parthenocarpic..

Parthenocarpic. In parthenocarpic plants fruit sets without the need for pollination. Of course without the contribution of pollen, there are no seeds within the female fruit.

Slicing. This is a specialized term referring to a type of cucumber intended for fresh use as opposed to pickling. Slicing cucumbers are usually longer and have a deep green color. Non-bitter. Another cucumber term that refers to a plant that doesn't produce the bitter compound cucurbitacin. Of course regular cucumbers don't produce bitter fruit either unless they are subjected to stressful growing conditions, but you will be pleased to note that non-bitter plants are also less damaged by the dreaded cucumber beetle.

Determinate. This term refers to a variety of tomatoes in which the main stem finally produces a terminal flower and stops vertical growth. Indeterminate varieties, like a popular brand of batteries, just keep on g(r)o(w)ing and g(r)o(w)ing and g(r)o(w)ing, that is until they are stopped by frost. Determinate tomato plants produce early ripening fruit clusters at each node.

Jointless. Indicates a tomato that can be pulled off the plant leaving the stem behind. Because jointless varieties do not form an abcission layer on the stem an inch or two above the fruit, the tomato detaches at rather than above the fruit.