Wow...so much good info still coming in. Thanks :) I am going to add some buzzing friends to the mix. I have purchased, and will be making more, Mason Bee houses. Plan to put them around the deck and see if they can help with pollination a little (hopefully a lot). I won't be discouraged if things don't work out. I have been planting tomatoes in two gallon clay pots, sitting in the driveway, for three years now and they do fine. If my deck project fails, I'll go back to that. The deck is treated, and hopefully I'll do it again before I set up the deck garden this spring. I have a hot tub sunken into the deck in one corner, but I don't use it anymore. I plan to build a box over the cover and set planters on top of that. I'll do some before and after pictures and post them when I get a chance. Brody

Welcome Juliemae! The seeds you've chosen require different treatment and different sized containers. They all will grow better if they each have their own containers. For example, carrots require a container that is at least 8-10 inches deep, and they can be planted fairly close together. Zucchini and squash can get huge. For each plant, you would probably want a container that holds at least 10 gallons of soil, which would be about 16 inches wide by 12 inches deep. Lettuce can grow in a shallow container, but it would need to be pretty wide (2 feet.) to provide enough lettuce for more than one dinner salad. Some of your seeds need to be started in spring, others in summer. I suggest you start slowly, with only a few containers. Herbs are a great place to start. Maybe do one zucchini and some carrots or lettuce. You'll have to buy (or find) containers and learn about what kind of potting mix to grow them in. (You can't use garden soil.) There are some books you could buy or get online that give you a good basic introduction to growing vegetables in containers: The Bountiful Container and The Vegetable Container Bible are pretty good. You could also visit the Vegetable Growing Forum To learn about what each kind of vegetable needs to grow well. Do a Google search on "growing X in a container" for free advice. Good luck!

Shodorov Nope, bought at HD just inside from the garden center. They are with the plant ties and such Emgardener...... They get about 7-8 hours. The sun comes up and kinda makes it's arch over the length of the garden Only 4 hours will make quite a difference. Its not you, its that damned sun :) My two tomatoes I planted in 18 gallon totes are way at the end of my garden. They get a lot less sun than the rest and you can tell

Thanks so much, everyone. Krista, the purplish rose is Wild Blue Yonder, which has beautiful, very large and fragrant flowers and a gangly tall undercarriage, at least for me. Oneto Home Saffron is a rose that I think Vintage got from the SJHRG. I believe Masha saw it there and took pictures. This is my first bloom and it's not very large, perhaps 3 inches, and I don't think the blooms are ever huge. The color however is so unusual, somewhat like a Lady Hillingdon bud and yet somehow richer. Christina, I believe OHS is the study name for this rose and no one knows its real name. Hard to believe this rose isn't better known and grown more. Thank you for the complements about my garden. It's coming along but of course it's still a work in progress. I think in another two years I'll be much closer to what I hope to achieve. Ingrid