Leslie, How wet is your pile? I got the impression from one of your first posts that you are watering it a lot. It may be too much. If you can pick it up (and yes, I use my bare hands in my pile all the time; I just don't think that the bacteria that are interested in eating dead vegetation are going to be very interested in me) and wring a good bit of water out, it may be too wet. If it is too wet and there's a good bit of 'greens' in there, it will begin to stink after a few days. If it does, spread it out to dry or turn it more often to help it dry. If it is not too wet, I am a bit surprised that you have not gotten things to heat up in #2 yet. It seems like you should have a good pile going (plenty of size and the correct ingredients if your greens are still fresh - meaning not already composted). When I hit things right in my pile it begins to heat up over night and within two or three days it is often over 140 F (again, that's when I have gotten enough greens in with the browns and it is not too wet or too dry). But you should get some heating if you have a good bit of greens and browns (even if the ratio is not perfect) and if the wetness is anything close to correct. Your bins should be of adequate size (mine are 4 feet across and 3 feet tall and made of wire mesh as well. The rough material at the bottom of #3 should help your pile to breath. I would continue to keep my eyes open for some greens, continue as you are and trust that it will all be compost in time. Steve

I have grown lettuce, basil, lovage, mint & Rosemary in the same system, & all did OK except the lovage. Lovage can get big, so space is a consideration. I have also tried to grow radishes in the same system, but they seem to prefer a more acidic pH. I have also started growing marjoram this year, & it seems to like an alkaline pH. I am still experimenting, however. One of the above links suggests Ruda as a companion plant, but I would not put it in the same system because of its smell. Borage may affect the flavor of your other plants  it is supposed to give tomatoes a cucumber taste. If you are planting it with tomatoes, you might want to experiment with a single pot. Borage does not like transplanting, so I would not move it around too much. Gopher purge, mentioned in the above sites does quite well in hydro - I accidentally planted one once. ItÂs planted in the soil, of course, but hydro is a good method of propagation. An herb not mentioned is Vietnamese Coriander (Polygonum odoratum Lour.). It also does very well in hydro & is easy to grow. Chervil seems to be very slow growing in soil  I do not know how well it would do in hydro. There seems to be discrepancy between the sites in terms of EC & ppm values for different crops on the above sites & they do not cite their source. They are a guide, however. There is a thread that relates pepper ppm below: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/hydro/msg052315176563.html The University of Arizona recommends a pH of 5.5-6.0 for tomatoes. http://ag.arizona.edu/hydroponictomatoes/nutritio.htm Southern CA has its own unique climate considerations which can affect outdoor hydro growing. You can probably get 3 growing seasons out of your plants. My soil based tomatoes started fruiting in January. Although determinate tomatoes are not supposed to last, mine fruited twice last year. I could have over wintered them had I not cut them down. I found the tree tomatoes did not do well during the hot periods of summer  I have had to move them to the shade. The Santa Ana winds can also quickly dry out & destroy seedlings. I am experimenting with gravel as a media this year simply because of the wind storms. There a couple of books you can probably find in your library you might find useful. Suzanne AshworthÂs book on seed saving provides information on pollination. The "Carrots Love Tomatoes" book provides some useful companion planting tips.

Kris, you can "grow tomatoes in the fall." But what that really means is "harvest them in the fall." If you plant an strongly indeterminate (means that it never stops growing and flowering) variety, then it's possible to simply nurse it through the heat and drought of July, and it will pick up flowering and fruiting when temps become more reasonable. But beware, if the plant gets too beat up, the fall harvest may not be all that good. The other option is to put out transplants in June. I say "June" because my climate turns cold sooner than Dawns. For me, since I start from seed, that means I start my seed early in May or late in April. Last year I direct seeded some Roma VF tomatoes on June 9. But all I got was some green tomatoes by frost. I have two varieties which I really like for fall tomatoes. One is Tuxhorn's Yellow & Red, which is like Hawaiian Pineaple (yellow beefsteak with red streaking). This one simply fruits more reliably in the fall. But the green tomatoes are WAY better than any other we've tried. The other variety is called Polish Pastel, which is a yellow and red streaked/pastel plum shaped but somewhat hollow fruited tomato. I bet it could be used for stuffing. Anyway Polish Pastel is an extremely resilient variety which can survive the heat and drought and BURST into flower as soon as temps become reasonable. This one is a heavy producer in the fall. Neither of these tomatoes is available commercially :( George

Twisties to tie up produce bags are totally unknown here. I wouldn't use them anyway (I cleaned out a drawer a few months ago that was literally an inch deep in unused twisties from packages of freezer bags, accumulated over 15 years!). I tie a slipknot with a loop in my bags so they can easily be opened again and if I haven't a trolley handy I can carry several bags with a finger slipped through the loop. Misbehaving children I have no compunction against telling off. Miss Manners suggests the line, "Don't do that, you might get hurt!", accompanied by the Look that says "And I will be doing the hurting". Works for me :-D Takes a village to raise a child and I am part of the village. My shopping-related pet peeve is our local grocery store (I live in a small town 37 km from the nearest other town) that either orders ridiculously small amounts of perishables, so they run out two days before the next delivery, or so much that you can't buy anything except what's right on the expiry date because they're not going to put fresher stuff out until all the old stuff is gone. And you can't buy the good brand of icecream in vanilla- lots of other flavours, but choc-mint doesn't go so well with apple cobbler :-P Why doesn't the person who orders consider that??? No one wants to eat a whole bowl of icecream in winter! (This is Australia, in case you hadn't guessed :-) .)