How exciting for you!! Good idea to do showy varieties. And to maybe look at square foot gardening. The grounds crew at work plant showy things in square foot boxes in the demonstration garden at work (organic nursery) and it really does convince people to plant a garden. They see how pretty everything looks and want to do it. The top picture has a lot of Asian cabbages and greens ~ tatsoi, bok choi, red bok choi, kamatsuna, etc., along with some lettuce and parsley. The second pic is a side view of the bok choi (beautiful! ~ and there's a "baby" bok choi variety that's so cute at only 6 or 8 inches tall), and the last pic is Bright Lights Swiss chard with lettuce spilling out in front of it. (Not all Bright Lights seedlings are that brightly colored ~ the grounds crew picked the brightest ones from a bunch of transplants ~ so you'll want to start four or five times as many seedlings as you want plants to make sure you have plenty to pick from). Then there are cheddar cauliflower (yellow curd) and graffitti cauliflower (purple curd), romanesco broccoli, dark red lettuces like Merlot and Firecracker. Here are those lettuces in my garden (Firecracker in front, Merlot alongside the Buttercrunch further back): And Winter Density lettuce is another pretty one (again, from my garden): Some more showy veggies: Burgundy or red okra ~ Gorgeous plant with red/maroon stems, leaf veins and pods. Since this one needs hot weather to really get going, you might have to start this one extra early and grow to good size in large pots beforehand. Musquee de Provence winter squash ~ MASSIVE silver-spangled leaves. It does take a long time to produce, so don't know if this would be a good choice for you. The plant itself is just beautiful though, and big so would look good tumbling out of one end of the plot. Purple podded bush beans ~ Most aren't as purple as catalog pictures show, so you might want to find real pictures from real people or get opinions beforehand on which is the purplest. Purple or yellow podded snow peas Cardoon or artichokes ~ Cardoon might be a better choice for you. Since you eat the stalks, it might have a chance to mature enough from seed to get a harvest if you grow them in 2 or 3 gallon pots for a while before you put them in the plot. Lots of work, but talk about showy! Purple Hyacinth beans ~ This one's every bit as gorgeous in person as the catalog pictures show you. It is edible, but you have to do a change of water or two when cooking. It's a pole bean, so you'd have to do some sort of trellis for it. Scarlet Runner beans ~ Beautiful red flowers. Another pole bean. Purple cabbage ~ The heads are pretty, but the plant itself is gorgeous and a real eye-catcher. Redbor Kale ~ Gorgeous frilly burgundy leaves with red "hightlights". Variegated peppers ~ Trifetti and Variegata are both purple and white variegated. Fish is white variegated. All produce edible peppers and some of those peppers are beautiful in their own right. You might also try one of the purple varieties like Purple Peruvian or Purple Beauty. Variegated tomato ~ I can't remember the name, but there is one out there. Early butternut squash ~ The plant itself isn't showy, but it produces so much so quickly that it'd definitely be worth growing in your plot imho. My plants were loaded with cute little butternut squash in no time. I can't think of any more right now, but if I do I'll come back and post them.

Karen, I grew Yukon gold potatoes in tires last year with decent success. I'm still a newbie at vegetable gardening, so I don't have expert advice to give. I have a lot of slugs in the garden and didn't want them in my potatoes. I also have a lot of old tires on the property. I found this web site www.kiddiegardens.com/growing_potatoes_in_tires.html. I laid landscape fabric on the ground then set 2 tires side by side, filled them with a mix of garden soil and compost, then planted the potatoes 4 or 5 inches above ground level in the tires. Then I covered the tops with several more inches of soil. When the plants grow 8 - 10 inches above the tire, add a tire and fill it with soil, leaving the top few inches of plant uncovered. I do wonder if I should be adding some potting soil to lighten the mix. It's an experiment, maybe the potatoes would do just as well or better in the ground. But I like the idea of no slugs, going vertical and using up the old tires. I have a friend that plants her potatoes in big plastic boxes. I'm going to pot up tomato and pepper seedlings in the next few days, the roots are starting to come through the sides and bottom of the netting. The tomatoes are 5 - 6 inches tall now, the peppers much smaller at 3 inches. Yeah! Mark, I think you had mentioned in another thread that you have a new grandbaby coming, Congratulations! Let that thought keep you warm until spring comes to you. Skybird, Dan and Jnfr, thanks for the pics. I love to see what you are up to in the garden. Great ideas! Digit, thanks for the lettuce info. Enjoy this beautiful day! Barb

Not sure if this is helpful, but I thought I'd share my accidental experience: I set up a sort of lasagna bed late this spring where I removed about an 8 in. wide strip of sod down the middle of the long narrow bed (it runs along my walk). On either side of the removed strip, I layered newspapers or cardboard and then piled up material, including some composted horse manure and some four way mix that I built up along the center strip. The layers on either side were just made up of whatever I could find to build it up 7-8 inches above the newspaper the keep the grass from busting through and build the soil up for next year. The idea was to make sure the beans for this summer had something that was already good and ready to go in the middle so that they could grow well and root down sufficiently deep. I think that I incidentally also filled the bed full of e.f. eggs/small worms from the horse poo. I had sorted out most of the big clumps of worms from the manure for my worm bins. I didn't notice the wiggler presence in the bed til yesterday when I was pulling out my spent bush beans (Which actually did quite well in this setup-- The zucchini that I grew with the same lazy method went nuts!). As I pulled out the beans and disturbed the first couple inches of nearly composted lasagna layers, the numbers of worms shocked me! There was more than I've seen in any of my garden areas. It was a very pleasant surprise! I also have a small worm trench set up next to that bed, so there is a small chance that worms may have also come from that, but I kind of doubt it. I'm interested to see what happens over the winter. Best wishes!

Thanks Jsweenc! That means a lot to me coming from you since your remodel is so gorgeous! You're right, I can't wait to start moving in there! Adh673, I actually thought about the same thing when I was shopping for lighting because bright light tends to give me a headache. So, I used dimmer switches. If it's too bright, I can adjust. I have one dimmer switch in my old house and I always wished I had them in every room. Rjr220, thank you! I just hope I keep it sealed like I say I'm going to. I tend to be a little rough on things.