I like the appearance of a lush, extravagent garden. However, I also design the gardens by flower color and foliage, and prefer to give each plant the space it requires at peak growth. I really like large and showy perennials and annuals, and if you don't give them sufficient room then they will never reach their full potential. Except for the WS seedlings and first year plants, I space out plants pretty far apart. I've watched how they grow in previous years, and have an idea how much room they require. This means there is a lot of space between plants in Spring and early Summer, but by now, it has all filled in. To fill in the space, I grow a lot of bulbs and ephemerals, which fade away by summertime. In the front yard, the gardens are more formal in this respect. In the back yard, they get increasingly less formal as you go back towards the wild area.

Tom, "John, are you using the white bags? I'd be concerned about the dyes and chemicals in the other colors.... " Good point. Heres what they (Greenbag Inc) say... "Is made from non-toxic, non-corrosive materials and safe color-fast dyes". I'm interested in these for several reasons, drainage, cooling and cost. I know they drain well, I don't think you could ever fill one with a garden hose. The upside down tomato bag I tried last spring stayed cool and it was black. The ones from Publix are a buck and I hear W mart's are cheaper. So I'll give it a try. john

I had one experience with it and it wasn't good. I threw out 3/4 of it. The pail was nice though. However, in fairness to it, it's been a long time since I tried it. It was pretty comparable to it's sister-brand "Sun". I believe it's another of the Huish brands and it, like Sun does not contain enzymes. So for light duty it was OK, heavy dirt and stains - no way. Plus it made me itch so badly even with extra rinsing, I had to quit using it, but the poor cleaning didn't make me feel that bad anyway. I don't think they have a small size for you to try either. Just the bucket.

Mostly a wonderful year here, despite the wet beginning. All of my common beans bore seed except for Fortex, which had heavy losses in Spring & had to be replanted. All of the remaining plants were devoted to snaps, and have done well... the plants are currently racing the frost to put on a second flush, and we've already begun picking again. On all but two of the rest, every pod ripened, and seed production was heavy... at least a pound or two each. I'll be tallying the complete results later this month. Scotia was - and is - very late, but I'm picking dry pods now, and the freeze is not due for at least a week. The plants showed possible crossing (flowers of different colors), but I'm waiting to check out the dry seed. Hope I can offer it, because my original 2005 seed is nearly dead (only had a few seeds germinate this year) and no one in SSE is currently offering it. The one failure is King Horticultural, which appears to be diseased... I will (regretfully) be dropping it from my collection. SSE is again offering it, so I may try again in a few years with fresh stock. The German Butterbean lima produced plenty of seed, all remaining pods will be used for food. Sadly, the lima which was to be named Pan-Pacific Black & White appears to be daylength sensitive. Growth really took off in September & numerous pods have set, but they will not have time to ripen before the freeze. Both runner beans have done very well. Dry seed harvest is nearly complete for Tucomares Chocolate... and the good news is that after several years of trying to eliminate a white-seeded impurity that was present in the original stock, it appears I've succeeded, since all 30 plants produced brown seed. And after several years of growing Gigandes with poor results, seed production has been heavy this year, and still continues. The vines suffered no die-back as pods matured, and are now re-blooming furiously... chances are these will be the last snaps I harvest this year. All the cowpeas but one did really well, and produced plenty of seed. The one exception was Grey Adzuki (really a small cowpea) which was overwhelmed by thistle; I collected enough seed to grow it again, hopefully under better conditions. Yardlongs were not as healthy as usual this year, but they did OK, and also produced quite a bit of seed. The adzuki & mung beans have done well, and thanks to the late frost, the mung harvest continues. Sadly, the bush rice bean I obtained in a trade several years ago is daylength sensitive; the semi-vining plants are lush & beautiful, but there is still no sign of flowers... so obviously, it will not have time to produce seed. It was an interesting plant to grow, though. Velvet bean didn't make it either, although it does have a few flowers. It too appears to be either daylength sensitive, or very long season. The vines are rambling monsters that overran everything within 6 feet. Only 3/6 peas did well it this year, due to heavy Spring rains. A 4th produced enough seed for another attempt. The tepary beans - my first attempt with the species - did surprisingly well. I was able to germinate nearly every seed I had received, and planted them all... in retrospect, not very wise, since the tiny pods are very hard to find in the dense, mat-forming foliage. I have been fortunate that the weather recently has been mostly dry, so very little of the moisture-sensitive seed was lost to spoilage. In the end, on the advice of a grower in the southwest, I pulled up up the plants entire, and hung them in the garage to dry. I will thresh out the beans when the vines have fully dried. Soybeans were my biggest disappointment, since they were the most heavily affected by the heavy Spring rains. About half of the varieties I planted rotted in the ground, and were complete losses. Still, 7 varieties did very well, and 3 more produced enough seed to share. Two more are just now beginning to dry down, and should have time to mature before the freeze. All things considered, not a bad year for seed saving. It was a banner year for tomatoes & peppers, my best year ever... yes, hard to believe, but I do grow other things besides beans. ;-) I'm almost looking forward to the frost, so I can begin putting the garden to bed for the year.