What a great idea, Jenn! You might want to think about maybe putting in a citrus tree or two, to give parts of this area some shade that might be good for growing lettuce. As long as what you put under the citrus isn't too demanding, the citrus tree wouldn't mind. Things to grow should cycle through with the seasons. You can keep your herbs going all year long, and the great thing about herbs is just by using them, they stay in check from the constant cutting or tip-pinching. Renee's Garden is my "go to" seed company, I love their varieties. And, a great couple of books to recommend for what you want to do: "52 Weeks in the California Garden" by Robert Smaus "Sunset Western Garden Book of Edibles" "Edible Gardening for Southern California", by Alison Beck "Pat Welsh's Southern California Organic Gardening", by Pat Welsch. Those are my books I like to use. I may also pick up "The Edible Garden" by Sunset just because it's like $7.00, and probably geared towards us in California, and has some practical suggestions for incorporating edibles in the landscape. I used to always grow marigolds in my veggie garden, but for here, I might put in Society Garlic, as much as I despise the smell because it does help to repel gophers. Any plants that attract pollinators, but not pests (like for me, snails & slugs) is a plus. I have several different salvia in my garden, as it is a huge pollinator attractor. Also, adding some prostrate rosemary that might creep down over the the border is also great, since for me, it is always covered with bees. Same with my lavendar - love the smell, and it is great for attracting pollinators. Patty S.

ingeborgdot, I live in Shawnee KS. a suburb in the greater Kansas City area. I bought that from a Korean importer 5 years ago that is no longer in business. This ornament is a Japanese Pagoda. It is made from lava stone comprised of 13 pieces that set upon each other. There are literally 1000's of them out there for sale in many different configurations. Just Google Lava stone Japanese Pagoda or find a Korean importer in your local area. I have no idea where you can find this particular one. Dave

Posted New Panoramic View of Garden from last week. Long beans, cucumbers, & zucchini growing exponentially.

I agree with the comments of the others. It also is important to study your sunlight patterns at different parts of the year to understand which areas adjacent to structures are shaded at which times of the year. In some cases, you can use that shading to your advantage. As a rural resident, I want to add that every living creature of every kind will enjoy every edible plant (and many that we human consider merely ornamentals) you have, so don't plant too much too soon without fencing and other protection because, if you do, you may find that the deer, rabbits and other creatures are devouring your plants just about as quickly as you can plant them. I cannot grow much of anything that is not fenced in so that deer and rabbits cannot get to it, and there's lots of other hungry animals and insects (and birds) that will devour every edible thing you plant, so have a plan in place. You might want to grow your lettuce in containers in the beginning, in order to have it high enough above the ground that the rabbits can't eat it. I grow some lettuce near the house in containers that are about 2' tall, and grow the rest in the fenced-in garden, which is a combination of vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers protected by an 8' tall fence. In our early years here we had a shorter fence and too many creatures found ways over it or under it and devoured both ornamental and edible plantings. While edible landscaping is wonderful, when you are rural or semi-rural it can be very hard to do it unless you have adquate measures in place to exclude wildlife, the neighbors' cows or goats that get loose, neighbors' dogs or cats (as well as your own pets) that like to dig, etc. I protect your fruit trees with tomato cages their first year or two to keep the deer from eating them or beating them to death and use hardware cloth or plastic tree protectors to keep rabbits from nibbling the bark and girdling the young fruit trees before they get a chance to grow. My advice is to go slow and figure out if the wild critters expect to come eat everything you plant. I finally had to largely give up on the idea of having any sort of edible landscaping around the house and just focus on the fenced garden. Otherwise, everything I plant just turns into Deer Chow and Rabbit Chow. I now have two very large fenced-in garden plots with ugly 8' tall fences and grow most everything within them. The actual landscaping around the house itself is just mostly shrubs, trees and groundcovers, with just a few flowering plants that the wildlife generally do not feed upon (but in drought years, they will even eat plants that they normally leave alone). For the most part, ignore those lists entitled "Plants that deer won't eat" or whatever. The deer do not read those lists and I have learned they will eat almost anything if they are hungry enough (and they often are indeed hungry enough). The battle to protect fruit trees (and peaches in particular) from hungry squirrels is an ongoing saga here. My fruit trees largely are not inside the fenced garden (though I am starting to plant more fruit trees inside fenced areas) and I have to fight the birds, squirrels and deer for every piece of fruit we harvest. Bird netting helps, but it is not even bird proof and certainly not squirrel and deer proof.