"can’t imagine doing without running water for 4 months!" It was . . . interesting. Fortunately, there's both an indoor pool, and a campground nearby that let us use the showers. And a neighbor let us fill jugs at his house. "You use green beans as dried beans? That’s a first! What do they taste like?" Dried beans are basically beans that have been left to get mature. So they just taste like beans to me. They're not as pretty and fun as, say, Vermont Cranberry Beans, and the flavor isn't as specific as most dried bean varieties, and also they're not as big so they don't shell quite as easily. But they're great for a lazy person :) "I guess you cook when you travel. The security check at the airport must be interesting with all that produce in your bag. You don't have a frying pan in there too? [g]" A fry pan -- lol! Well, on road trips I have been known to travel with a salad spinner and Cuisinart :) Always have to have a kitchen. Or someone else's home cooking. Really dislike restaurant food. Self seeded veggies are wonderful. And yes, the ones I mentioned come out good, even if not exactly true to seed, it all tastes good. (though they seem to be true, as well) If you'd have to pay for hay or straw it doesn't seem worth it. Maybe ask a couple neighbors if you can have their grass clippings and/or leaves? (those who don't use herbicides) It sounds like the next few years hold some exciting experimentation for you! You'll have to report back and tell us how it goes. I'd love to hear how you do with fall lettuce and greens if you try them this year.

It isn't that I'm so wonderfully organized, Pam, I require some help in remembering what I want to do. Sometimes I come inside and remember that I had a wonderful thought about adding something to a certain spot, but I've already forgotten what it was. I can't remember what bloomed in April as compared with May. Sometimes when I read my notes, if there isn't a photo with them, I am not sure what they mean. Today I looked at a file with nicotiana and lilies together and a note about purple nicotiana that I don't remember at all, and it is only a month old. If there isn't a note with the plants I'm about to plant, they'll go in the wrong places when I get distracted. You all can feel free to worry about me at any time. If I kept all my plans 'in my head' they would rapidly leak out. There's just too much to remember it all. Nell

I admit to having cheated a little (ok, a lot) by planting food crops in and amongst most of my ornamentals so that I could water them all at the same time. Almost every pot with a flowering bush or bulb in it also contains a tomato, pepper, herb or onion plant, and earlier in the season I had lettuce growing in every bare spot I could find. I highly recommend this technique not just so that you can cheat on watering, but because it's great to grow your own food and many food plants look beautiful. There are a few things, however, in my yard and in our community garden that have never received a drop of supplemental water this year and still look fine. Off the top of my head, I can name these things: lady banks roses (I'm convinced you couldn't kill these, once mature, with any kind of neglect or abuse) climbing hydrangea (mine isn't old enough to bloom yet but it is growing fine and not drying out at all as far as I can tell, seems to still be spreading) gardenia (planted in an extremely dry spot under a large tree where I doubt it even gets much rainfall when we have rain, but has at least a foot deep mulch, mostly leaf mold, all around it) passionflowers (I have two kinds, the one with the startlingly beautiful purple flowers, and the one that makes the egg-shaped purple fruit but has only tiny insignificant white flowers that you have to search for if you want to see. Both are doing very, very well.) lilies of many varieties, although I tend to plant the tall ones (4-6 feet tall) creeping fig (another plant you can't kill once it gets past a certain age) naked ladies or lycoris squamigera, blooming their lovely pink heads off right now (transplants from Ohio that took 2 or 3 years after moving down here to decide to bloom, but are now apparently completely acclimated) verbena bonariensis, not only blooming without water but reseeding and growing new plants everywhere without water, which also grow to maturity and somehow bloom and reseed without any water, and so on into infinity. . . kudzu and poison ivy, about which no more need be said.

LOL!! Me too Ricky! I just "DO" my garden all day long. Kate, when I was getting spinal injections and I had to remain perfectly calm and still even tho the injections burned and hurt, I would take a deep breath and recite flowers/plants alphabetically until they were done...the pain management Doc was alarmed the first time to hear me whispering, then he finally got used to me rattling off plant names. They actually kept it in my chart where I left off last injection visit. They would tell me prior to the shot...start with dischidia!! Right now I wake thinking about my tomato seedlings daily...and dream about 'em too! When something consumes you, just be glad it's gardening!