LOL, yep, my hubby is a good digger! Unfortunately he is a busy boy these days; working full time at the farm and working on an commerce degree/CGA accreditation in his evenings. He is done his classes for the summer in early June, though, and his plan is to dig another 4 beds(4' x 15'), after he reshingles the barn! We have a 3 year plan to have 12 beds dug, I did the 4 last year. I'll be happy when I feel like we aren't constantly working on the next thing in our yard that "has" to get done. I hate having to limit what variety of veggies I plant due to space restrictions! I'm sure you know the feeling. I feel like that is a long ways away though, especially when my time is about to become a lot more occupied! I went out and tied some of the strings shorter - I'm sure it'll work that way, Lynn, just tie them a couple inches shorter and your circle becomes smaller.

I do understand that beans are self pollinating and I typically grow them side by side, save the seed and so far have observed no crosses. Yet, I see many beans labeled as hybrids. I understand hybrids as a crossing of two inbred lines or two other wise uniform strains. I understand the basic principles/concepts of hybrid crosses, inbreeding, linebreeding, backcrossing, topcrossing, etc. I used to raise some fine poultry. Even imported a trio from KY. Now here is my two cents on the hybrid subject. I believe, (as opposed to know) that seed companies sometimes do cross varieties and call them a F1 cross but after initial crossing and selection grow out from the original selection from year to year. In another words they don't have workers in south america or where ever tediously taking pollen from one variety of bean, or tomato etc. to another thousands of times to produce this year's F1 (or so they say) seed crop. So yes you can save the seed and they will come true to type year to year. And, yes "hybrid" is a vain attempt at least with some veggies, to discourage seed saving. I have commonly read that some crops, watermelons in particular will cross and must be isolated. However, one year I grew Charleston Grey, Crimson Sweet, and Yellow Doll (maybe Yellow Baby) and the next year I had a lot of volunteers. Guess what I harvested? All three types separate and distinct. Perhaps a third year would have yielded crosses. I don't know. Gardening seems to be filled with its own set of myths. Maybe garden myths should be a forum? Anyway my "mistakes" are what led me into seed saving and heirlooms etc. Now about those beans, yes they kinda lean over, but all my bush beans seem to lean over. Jumbo sends up a short runner vine above the bush and so could probably use some support. Wish I could say they are so massive that they pull the plants over, but I am not in the seed selling business! Am I on the right track?

At a rest stop on a tour in Italy a couple of years ago, the restroom had a couple of stalls with the hole in the floor and footprints, while the others were modern. One teenaged girl got back on the coach to report that she had gone in one of the first kind and exclaimed, "I didn't know what to do!" Farm girl that I am, I wondered how she wasn't able to figure it out, even in the event that as a small girl she hadn't in an emergency been taken somewhere in the grass by her mother. I'm afraid I've become a bit of a cynic in my declining years.

Coby, I am so sorry to hear about your loss and it's very nice to see more people who grow to love this forum. Isn't it the best?! As others have said, I hope your gardening can bring you some peace. I know when I lost my dad 9 years ago, there were those moments I just needed to head out to the garden and then I could make it through. I always tell people gardening is my zen. Wintersowing......thanks for the reminder. I need to start saving milk jugs because I don't have anywhere to indoor sow sadly. I always had a couple or three hundred seedlings in my laundry room at the other house. For timing sakes, I really need to wintersow this year. I have donated to the wintersown site before and when I did try wintersowing about 4 years ago, I learned a lot from their site. The only problem I ran into was I was not patient enough and would open the jugs and look every. single. day. lol My main thing is that I am going to have to choose which of the seeds I want to wintersow. I have 6 notebook pages full of the different types of seeds I have. Oh how will I ever choose?! Happy gardening everyone, Melissa