josh, I water the old fashioned way -- by hand using a watering wand. It's not so bad in the Spring after everything is planted but by late June when the plants get big it becomes a huge PITA. My sister watered the three weeks when I was gone and she wasn't a happy camper and was glad to rid herself of that task. By the end of August it took me an average of 90 minutes to completely water the garden each day and I estimated that on average I used 150 gallons per day. On heavy watering days I used 200 gallons and on light watering days I'd use 100 gallons. By late August I'd spend a minimum of one hour and a max of two hours with most days in between that. Now that we're in late September we're getting more rain and it has cooled so I'm not watering that much any more. This year was a lot worse for water because I'm using that pine bark mix in most of the containers and they drain very quickly requiring more water. The upside is that the plants did well and I had for the first time a tomato crop with decent yields and nice looking tomatoes. I still made mistakes via not fertilizing right and hope to do even better next year. I don't know why it took me so long to realize this but next year I'm installing a drip irrigation system. I've been doing google and found a couple of sites that seem to be decent. It does seem kind of complicated but there's all winter to figure this out. :-) heebiejeebie, the honeydew melons are in a tall wastepaper basket that I gleaned from the alley and made into a container. I estimate it's more like 10 to 15 gallons of container space but its narrow and tall. The honeydew melons were an experiment for me. I wanted to see how they would grow in a container that was narrow but deep. I put two plants in there and so far they've yielded 8 melons and the plants had tons of flowers and looked really healthy. I wasn't expecting much out of this but I think that having deep containers for the roots to grow down might have been better than a wider, shallower, larger volume container. It might have something to do with the Perched Water Table (or something like that) per Al's dissertation in that other thread. I like these deep narrow containers since they take up less space and allow the vines to cascade down the sides. I won't know until I dig them out if they became root bound but I suspect they did. The plants still look healthy and there are two honeydews still growing late September here in Chicago. People around here are always throwing out those tall plastic wastebaskets and I already have two more stored for next year. I'm thinking of trying cucumbers or cantelopes in those containers next year and see how those do.

Yes Ma'am there is a winter sowers group on facebook!!! Trudi is trying to get the group number up to 1000 before the end of this sowing season. So spread the word!!! Oh and on the discussion board there is a topic where it ask what is your gardenweb name. I thought about that after my post. Here is a link that might be useful: Winter Sowers Group on Facebook

Thanks everyone, you all make me feel so good! Newbie in NJ, don't cross off the celosia...they still look great DESPITE being chewed on. You can't even tell until you get up close because they grow so densely the deer just can't keep up with the plants! I'll be growing them again next year, definitely! I had the same problem as you with most of my cosmos - except for a few bunches I had planted in front of some bushes. I guess the bunnies were too scared to get too close to whatever might jump out of the bushes to munch on them. Historically, I've not really been much of a gardener until about five years ago, but even then all of the stuff was store bought. Year before last, I tried to grow plants from seeds but it didn't work well. Then I found winter sowing and voila, I have a garden full of wonderful plants! All the nice plants in my garden are there thanks to all the folks who shared their experiences with me through this forum! Thanks again!

Hi guys! Gillian, I planted the original seeds for the nigella thinking they were garlic chives! lol I had forgotten that a client of mine had given me the seeds and I mislabled the packet. Ever since that first year they just keep coming back and in soooooo many areas that I hadn't planted them! lol Tiffy, thanks! We have had just incredible weather up here, lots of regular rain and hot summer days. I am expecting to find ole Jack-in-the-Beanstalk come climbing down the bean pole! lol That anchor... glad you like it. I made it with cement and sand cast it into the anchor shaped hollow. I embedded the shells into the sand before I filled it with cement mortar mix. I kinda like it too! Marly