For years, I've grown greens right through the winter, long after cucumbers, squash, and okra have been killed by the first frost of the season. I've enjoyed the kale, collards, mustard greens, broccoli, and turnips that fill my dinner plate until the spring, even as I crave the meatier flavors of summer.

I've tried to vary my wintertime harvest. Two years ago, I grew squash and cucumbers in a small greenhouse my father built back in the '80s. But I learned that, although I could grow a pretty plant, it bore no fruit. These crops require bees to pollinate them, and there were none to be found during the cold, rainy part of the year.

I did net a few cucumbers, the result of my hand-pollination of female flowers by poking their male counterparts into their petals. But the process was time-consuming and relied on the right humidity, temperature, time of day, and age of the flower to fall into place. Mimicking nature's processes proved to be no easy task and hardly worth the effort.

The benefits of seedless hybrids
But then last fall, I stumbled onto the secret that professional growers use to grow summertime crops year-round: seedless hybrids, bred to need no insects for pollination. These are the source for the cucumbers and zucchini we see in grocery stores during the winter.

These seedless hybrids are gynoecious, which means that they produce only female flowers. Female flowers have what look like tiny fruits already formed underneath them. In fact, that's kind of what they are — but to grow into something worth eating in standard varieties, these little fruits must contain fertilized seeds or they'll dry up and fall off. Not so with the hybrids.

These hybrids have another trait that's been bred into them by trial and error: They're parthenocarpic, which means that their ovules don't need to be pollinated in order for the plant to grow a cucumber or squash large enough to pick. They grow on their own, and because they've not been pollinated, they are almost always seedless.

I was resistant to buying hybrid seed. They're not genetically engineered; hybrids have been around for centuries and are produced through traditional breeding methods. I avoid them only because they don't produce seed that can be relied on to grow a new generation of crops, which is really no big deal. So, I dropped my hang-ups and made an allowance for these hybrids because the promise of picking summer vegetables in the dead of winter was too enticing to pass up.

The trial with squash and cucumber
For my first attempt at so-called controlled environment agriculture, I bought a pack each of Partenon squash and Corinto cucumbers from Johnny's Select Seed. The seeds are pricier than standard varieties. A mini pack costs about $5 or $6 for just 10 seeds, which is understandable because hybrids are labor intensive and can take decades of breeding to perfect.

A mishap involving crickets left me with only three squash sprouts, a day or two after they popped up last January. In two-gallon plastic flower pots with coconut coir and perlite as the growing medium, they grew quickly into full-sized squash plants with broad, beautiful, green leaves and healthy stalks.

By February, they bloomed with succulent flowers that blossomed longer than the standard varieties I've grown. They didn't drop off when the fruit began to put on mass, so I was able to pluck them off whole for an added treat of fried squash blossoms.

About a week and a half after forming, the zucchini squash were ready to pick. In the kitchen, they sliced up nicely but were firmer than their standard cousins. Sauteed with onions, they were indistinguishable from the zucchini I pick in midsummer. There on my plate in the middle of winter was a side of squash, which I considered a success.

More impressive were the seedless cucumbers I planted in one-gallon plastic pots using the same growing medium. Three weeks into their growth, I found it necessary to support their fast-growing vines up several strings of jute twine that I hooked onto the rafters of the greenhouse eight feet above ground. The vines grew up the twine and across the rafters and back down toward the ground so fast that I felt I could see their progress from hour to hour.

Along each foot of their growth, a flower that needed no bees or butterflies for pollination bloomed and dropped off, leaving a shiny, dark green cucumber in its place. After about two weeks of growth, the cucumbers were ready to slice up and put in a salad.

The squash was an acceptable substitute for the superior standard summertime varieties, but the cucumbers were better than the varieties I grow outdoors. They were long and slender with thin, smooth skin. Their flavor was mild without a hint of bitterness.

Seedless success
By the beginning of March, when one last snowfall blanketed the ground outside the greenhouse, my five indoor plants were growing three to five cucumbers each. Fruit hung down all the way up the vines and down from the rafters overhead.

By spring, aphids overtook my squash plants, but I fended them off the cucumbers with a daily application of plant wash. The cucumbers continued to produce until June, when I directed my labor back to outdoor growing. They could have lived on and yielded plenty more, but I didn't have the time to tend these monster vines.

As I prepare my greenhouse for this winter, I've begun to plan on other seedless hybrids I'll try out. They'll grow with the greens I produce hydroponically. I only need to keep the temperature above 50 for everything to stay safe.

If I had no access to a greenhouse, I'd still grow a couple of pots of each in the sunlight of a south-facing patio door, maybe with a little supplemental light from an LED grow light. I can also see these doing well on an apartment balcony, as long as they're brought in any night when frost is likely. The cukes would have to be pruned, of course. A sunroom might even be a better place than a greenhouse as the warmer temperatures are preferable.

Both the squash and the cucumbers were heavy feeders; I watered them with a stout solution of hydroponic nutrients. This gave them the moisture and the food they needed in one easy task.

When it was cold and cloudy, they needed this treatment only twice a day. By May, when the sun was shining and the days were long, I watered and fed them about five times each day. I'll automate this work with pumps and timers this year.

Seedless hybrids have opened my mind up to a whole new approach to keeping my pickings coming in year-round. For now, I plan to use these to add variety to my wintertime fare. As I hope to one day move up from being just a hobby farmer to a full-time commercial grower, I'm sure I'll rely on these hybrids for a steady harvest to take to the market.

One of the advantages to growing hybrid squash indoors during the winter is a plentiful supply of delicious squash blossoms.

Photo by Marshall Hinsley

One of the advantages to growing hybrid squash indoors during the winter is a plentiful supply of delicious squash blossoms.

Will writer/director M. Night Shyamalan ever get out of the filmmaking prison of his own making? After 2 ¾ great films, Shyamalan has delivered nothing but stinkers with his last five feature films, failing to capture the imagination no matter what type of movie he’s tried to make.

The Visit is a good start toward redemption, though. Like many upstart filmmakers, he became a victim of his own success, having to try to one-up himself with twistier plots and working with a series of big-name actors. The Visit is smaller in every way, starting with its no-name cast, only one of which has any modicum of name recognition.

The film jumps on the found footage bandwagon, with a slight twist to make it more palatable: Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) are sent off to visit their grandparents (Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie), whom they’ve never met, by their mother (Kathryn Hahn), who had a falling out with her parents many years ago. Becca, a budding filmmaker, uses it as an opportunity to make a documentary about her family’s history, filming every second of their visit.

Almost as soon as they arrive at the house in the country, though, things seem off. Nana has a habit of acting very strangely after a certain time of night, while Pop Pop displays signs of old age deterioration, including forgetfulness and incontinence. Becca and Tyler attempt to play it off the weirdness as normal things grandparents do, but the more odd things that happen, the harder they become to ignore.

Shyamalan makes a lot of good decisions in the film, including playing up the humor factor. If he had tried to make it a straight horror, the concept would not have worked. Because he injects doses of comedy along the way, it not only keeps the audience on their toes, but also makes the suspenseful aspects that much more gripping.

He also subverts expectations to a degree. There are many points along the way where Shyamalan takes us right up to edge of terror, only to pull back. By doing this kind of push and pull, he primes the audience well for the reveals in the third act. He also lays good groundwork with appearances by seemingly random people who dole out just enough information to keep the audience intrigued until the end.

It’s not a perfect film, though. It falls prey to the usual horror movie conventions, with Becca and Tyler making odd decisions on multiple occasions. It also leaves several questions unanswered, such as the film setting up the grandparents’ house to be a technology dead zone, only to have the kids have the ability to connect to high-speed internet.

But for the most part, The Visit is the most enjoyable M. Night Shyamalan film in the past 10 years. Although it doesn’t stand up to movies like The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable, it does signal that there’s still life in the once-acclaimed filmmaker’s career.

Olivia DeJonge and Deanna Dunagan in The Visit.

Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

Olivia DeJonge and Deanna Dunagan in The Visit.

Heidi Klum proved you don't have to spend a lot to look good. At a party on the opening night of New York Fashion Week to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Macy's INC International Concepts collection, the model and Project Runway host drew admiring glances in a form-fitting, sleeveless faux leather dress from the collection, which retails for less than $120.

"It's very affordable, which is great," she told reporters. Of course it helps to have a killer figure and good genes. (She's 42, but she looks a decade younger.)

Klum, who appeared in some of the first ads for the Macy's private label 18 years ago, returned for the current ad campaign with 40-year-old model Gabriel Aubry (Halle Berry's ex and father of the couple's 7-year-old daughter). Aubry was on hand for the celebration, along with actress Christina Milian and models Karolina Kurkova, Candice Huffine, and Shaun Ross.

A limited-edition men's and women's capsule collection in honor of the brand's anniversary, available at Macy's stores this month, was on display. Women's apparel ranges form $35 to $200; men's goods range from $15 to $175. The INC brand also includes shoes, handbags, jewelry, and home goods. The latter launched last year.

Heidi Klum wore a faux leather dress ($119.50) from the Macy's INC collection.

Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris for Getty Images

Heidi Klum wore a faux leather dress ($119.50) from the Macy's INC collection.

Jewelry designer David Yurman has hit black gold. We’re not talking about oil — but the new Midnight Ice Collection, a dramatic mix of rings, cuffs, bracelets, and earrings in darkened silver with gold, as well as intricate beaded stone necklaces in onyx, pyrite, and citrine that reflect fall's folkloric influence.

The collection, which retails from $650 to $3,850, features some of Yurman's most iconic silhouettes — Renaissance, Albion, and Chatelaine —in the new darker look, with black diamonds and volcanic rock. The collection’s showstopper belt buckle features 21 carats of black diamonds.

Yurman recently unveiled the brand at the Neiman Marcus NorthPark store in Dallas with Vogue market stylist Cara Crowley. “We don’t make stuff. We make pieces that meet our desires,” he told the crowd.

The collection is available exclusively at all Neiman Marcus stores through the end of the month and then at David Yurman boutiques and other stores that carry the brand.

Models showcase the new David Yurman Midnight Ice collection at Neiman Marcus.

Courtesy photo

Models showcase the new David Yurman Midnight Ice collection at Neiman Marcus.

On September 10, Texas Monthly released the lineup for this year's TMBBQ Fest in Austin, a celebration of all things grilled, smoked, and 'cued. Among the participating restaurants are several Dallas-Fort Worth favorites.

The festival offers brisket, sausage, and rib fiends the opportunity to sample some of the tastiest barbecue from across the state in one convenient location. Festival-goers can also enjoy cold drinks and live music from the likes of Flaco Jiménez Y Su Conjunto and LaTasha Lee & The BlackTies. For the first time ever, there will also be a sweet lineup of desserts and meaty delicacies.

"This Texas-sized celebration brings the pages of [the] magazine to life," Texas Monthly president John D. Lunn said in a release. "And this year's new addition of desserts will round out the culinary experience for attendees eager to taste the best this vast state has to offer."

All of the pitmasters at this year's festival have been featured in a Texas Monthly article honoring the best-of-the-best barbecue joints. Dallas eateries that earned top marks include Lockhart Smokehouse and Pecan Lodge, as well as Fort Worth's Cousin's Bar-B-Q and McKinney's Hutchins BBQ — all of which will be at TMBBQ Fest this fall.

The sixth annual celebration will take over the Long Center on Sunday, November 1. Tickets go on sale at 10 am Friday, September 11. Admission ranges from $80 to $145, although children 5 and under get in for $10.

The full TMBBQ Fest lineup is as follows:

• Buzzie's Bar-B-Q (Kerrville)
• Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que (Llano)
• Cousin's Bar-B-Q (Fort Worth)
• Cranky Frank's BBQ Company (Fredericksburg)
• Franklin Barbecue (Austin)
• The Granary ‘Cue & Brew (San Antonio)
• Hatfield's BBQ (Rockport)
• Hays County Barbeque Restaurant (San Marcos)
• Hutchins BBQ (McKinney)
• Killen's Barbecue (Pearland)
• La Barbecue (Austin)
• Lamberts Downtown Barbecue (Austin)
• Lockhart Smokehouse (Dallas)
• Louie Mueller Barbecue (Taylor)
• Miller's Smokehouse (Belton)
• Opie's Barbecue (Spicewood)
• The Original Black's Barbecue (Lockhart)
• Pecan Lodge (Dallas)
• Pody's BBQ (Pecos)
• Snow's BBQ (Lexington)
• Stiles Switch BBQ & Brew (Austin)
• Two Bros BBQ Market (San Antonio)
• Tyler's Barbeque (Amarillo)

No surprise here: Pecan Lodge joins this year's TMBBQ Fest bill.

Photo by Tadd Myers

No surprise here: Pecan Lodge joins this year's TMBBQ Fest bill.