Out here in the west there was a trend of installing dry stream beds about 16-17 years ago. Many were so ugly and terribly installed that I think people finally got turned off to them. Now there is a resurgence due to new landscape ordinances that require a homeowner to keep as much rain water on their own property rather than discharging it into the storm drains. A lot of the newer dry steam beds are much more natural and organic looking and beautifully integrated into the landscape, I think in part because of the horrid examples of the past. I think that you can 'get the look' and have it also be functional as a vehicle to re-charge your aquifer. The installation of a liner, piping, filters and pump is going to be a fairly large undertaking ( $ ) and I wonder if having a dry stream bed might be a better fit than an operational stream bed ? Drtygrl - The flat stone river bed in the first photo is beautifully rendered. I appreciate the moss covered large side wall stones and how they naturally move the undulating fall line of the stream.

To be honest, I have only planted carrots once in this garden and they did just like they have done most places I have lived, so I just stopped planting them. They were cheap to buy and I just didn't fight it. They don't seem to be the 'cheap' food they once were, but maybe that is because I search out the baby ones and not just those that are peeled to look like baby carrots. I have read lots about them lately and have been happy to have the info from 'real' gardeners like you and Jay, although both of you grow in very different conditions than mine. The problem has been that they didn't develop underground. The tops always looked perfect, but there was just not much under it. I would guess that much of my problem has been that I didn't thin enough. I think I am going to make seed tapes like seedmama does, and then I won't have to do that part. I am thinking that I will build a small bed so I can control the soil, and try some in the fall. It will be just another learning experience for me. One side of my garden drains a lot faster than the other. I have not planted any of the summer crops that you listed above either except for green beans. I planted some pole beans and the germination was not as good as normal. A little later, I planted Contender bush, and they seem to be doing fine. One of the market gardeners that posts on the Market forum says that if you want to plant early beans, make sure the seed color is brown. In her opinion the brown bean was more tolerant of cooler temps. Your temps have been surprising low, haven't they? I think our low for May so far is 47. I've got a ton of work to do outside, so I had better get started. Thanks for the carrot help. Oh, here are the seeds I bought: Cosmic Purple Carrot Atomic Red Carrot Amarillo Carrot Greasy Grits Beans Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli Chinese Red Meat Radish Lettuce Leaf Basil Red Malabar Spinach Stevia Zucchino Rampicante Squash (Already growing for this year) Long Island Cheese Squash Precoce D'Argenteuil Asparagus True Black Brandywine Tomato Pineapple Tomato Flame Tomato Big Yellow Zebra Arkansas Traveler Tomato Amish Paste Flame Lettuce Mascara Lettuce Because I went back in the store and bought 3 different times during the day, I got a free pack of seeds each time. LOL I didn't plan it that way, it just happened, plus with the crowd, it was very hot and crowded in there, expecially early in the day, and I couldn't stand it very long at a time. Last time DH went he was grabbing seeds everywhere and throwing them in the basket. This time he stayed about 3 minutes and headed for the porch to wait for me. After I had bought seeds and thought I was finished, I remembered that I wanted Malibar Spinach, but didn't want to fight the crowd for one pack of seeds. Then I went to hear Oster speak and remembered I wanted Lettuce Leaf Basil also, so I went in for the 3rd time. The free seeds were Clemson Spineless Okra, Watermelon Jublee, Quadrato d'asti Giallo Pepper. I already have that pepper growing in my garden this year also. I hope I didn't duplicate the tomatoes because I didn't check my inventory before I left home since I wasn't planning to buy anymore tomatoes, but since tomato and lettuce seed were were their Spring Festival special priced item, for $1 a pack, I just had to have a few more. LOL

I go with the idea of scrounging whatever you can from wherever you can. I frequently find bookcases on the side of the road during "curb shopping" expeditions - they're usually particle board with cheap lamination, and most often the back has fallen off, which is why they're being disposed of. Take those home, throw them down on the ground, fill them up with the soil mix of your choice. They look fairly neat. In a couple of years, of course, moisture will make the particle board fall apart; at this point, you can take the bed apart, peeling off the veneers and trashing those. Then you get a new bookcase, put the half-composted board at the bottom of it, refill with soil or lasagna layers or whatever, and start over. Or you can put the particle board some place near your compost bins where it can moulder away and be added as browns when it crumbles. Eventually it will be compost. (Particle board shouldn't be burned, but composting is a slow and safe way of dealing with it.) Don't go buying new ones for this purpose; but reducing the bookcase to a small wad of veneer and a bunch of organic material is much better than putting the whole thing in a landfill, IMO. Cabinet frames and old drawers do nicely, too, and provide varied heights for interesting design (and raising plants to comfortable levels). Plain wood bookcases last longer if you can get them, but don't use painted ones - the paint flakes off and gets in the soil, and you have no way of knowing whether there's lead in there or not. Plastic "milk crates" can be used to support cardboard boxes full of soil, or even brown paper bags. After harvest, dump all the used soil, complete with the crumbling remains of the paper, into a pile, refresh it with some compost, and put it into a new box. You can rearrange the boxes easily. Plastic swimming pools with holes in the bottom are also good, as long as you don't mind the "blue with little fishies" look. If you do mind fishies, stack used bricks, stone or broken concrete around the pool to hide it. You should never, ever have to pay for any of this stuff - plenty of people throw stuff away every day that can be repurposed and saved from the landfill, at least for a while.

Scott, At the present time I still have high hopes for our native plant population. I saw a lot of them come back after 2005-2006 when it had seemed unlikely for them to surive. However, with a lot of the native plants that are dropping leaves now, we may not know until next year if they were only dropping leaves and going dormant now in order to survive or if they were dying. One thing I've noticed here is that the native trees don't die during the dry year---they die the next year. Trees can live a while on stored energy and often will survive the initial drought year and then die a year or so later. Often people get confused about why the drought didn't kill the tree. Actually, it did but it was just a slow, delayed death. Pat, If I never see a wildfire again, it will be fine with me but we have a few here every year. We rarely lose a home to one because our homes tend to be more out in fairly open and easily accessed grassland. We do have a ton of trouble with the ones that are in rocky, hilly areas with less access, particularly if their hills are covered in cedar trees. Last weekend we had one grassfire come within a few yards of a home, but the firefighters arrived in time to save the house. I was shocked at how close it got to the house in such a brief period of time though. Our winter fire season here is usually the problem time. It is unusual to be having this many big fires in summer. Even though summer is often hot and often dry, we don't have the strong winds most of the time that are more common in late winter and in spring, and usually we're green enough that summer fires move slowly. It is so dry here now, though, that fires in 6 to 8 to 10 miles of gentle southerly winds seem to be running about as fast as the winter/spring fires pushed by winds in the 30s to the 50s. It definitely has been a shock to a lot of the firefighters these last two or three weeks to see the fires running like mad ahead of them. I'll give them credit though. As soon as they can see the fire and they realize it is exhibiting extreme wildfire beavior, they call quickly for more departments. That's the whole key here to stopping one of these---getting the manpower, water and trucks there so you can stop it quickly. If you don't stop it quickly, you may be fighting it for days and days. We've only had a couple of multiple-day fires so far this summer. Suzie, That's bad news about the well. I read an article this weekend about all the people in Texas who are having to have their wells lowered, at the rate of at least $25 per foot. They have no choice as the aquifer has dropped so much lower. Trying to keep a light-hearted attitude here in our county, we've been joking that 'brown is the new green', but it is no laughing matter. Brown and crunchy is just flat dangerous, and the ranchers and horse folks are having to make tough decisions about whether to keep their animals, or how many to keep, or how to feed the ones they keep. It is sad. We had a little rain shower this morning but even though it felt nice, the small amount of rain that fell wasn't enough to make a difference in any shape, form or fashion. Still, for that hour or so that it was sprinkling and thundering, the temps dropped and it felt really nice for a little while. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Article--Drought Taking Toll On Texas Aquifers