Yes, Katamari is the rolling stuff up game. Its really addictive for such a simple game, and theres three of them. The part I like the most is the amazing effort they put into the music. I found some of it on youtube and it ranges from techno to jazzy lounge music, swing music, Im pretty sure someone even snuck a gospel peice or two in there. While Iw as writing yesterday I stumbled across someone who had done an orchestral version of one of the themse that made my jaw drop. Video game music is constantly impressing me with every passing year. But anyway, back to gardening... Part of my problem with the space issue is theres a movement out here for the "Grow Biointensive" system. While I'm interested that they've managed to do so much with such small topsoil space, I've noticed all the beds dealing with the system need at least two feet of soil, dug down or in raised beds, and thats not what I have. My mum has been trying to push me in that direction, but I dont feel confident with it at this time since I wanted to get more of a feel for the general gardening situation since its my first time and all. Some plants still got pushed closer together than I would've liked but then none of us had seen some of these plants actually growing before. The cukes are doign better than I expected for being about 6 inches closer to each toher plant than I really wanted them to be, but we had such a huge amount of plants to deal with that I did the best I could. I think the funniest part about all this is while it is my first time growing a real garden, I've been growing virtual gardens since I was abotu 19, playing an online game called "Final Fantasy 11", which had a really complicated planting/gardening system most people didnt know about. That game system is actually what got me really focused on the seasons, when to plant, where to plant, when to fertilize, what plants grew better in what geological areas, and I even had a little notebook for a long time where I'd record the weekly cycle of my virtual plants in relation to the moon phase and exact time I made any modifications to the planting space. Even the gamers thought I was nuts, but I loved it! They'd even die off or give terrible results if I neglected them for too long, or give off better results if I got proper gardening tools, workbenches, and diffrent planters had diffrent effects too. Im getting better results with a real garden than I was in my virtual gardens though... Except for that one time I accidentally harvested 122 virtual onions. I can tell you, the cooks sure were happy with me.

We had our local "garden crawl" this weekend too. It was 5 gardens which were all "do it yourself" featuring anything from flower gardens to purely veggie gardens (and some of both). Most people had "non-elaborate" (it's all DIY) gardens but most are probably not something that people would consider "saleable" gardens. That's because most of us don't want to sell! We moved here to move here (most of the people on the tour chose their homes based on the exterior space, and were gardeners before they moved in, only one wasn't and she is just starting her garden but has an awesome yard for gardening!!!). NOTHING like your tour at all. However gardening isn't the only attraction. We also "crawl" from each house after fun beverage after beverage. By 4pm so many were daydrunk they went home before our dinner plans. I focused on water, and keeping hydrated and a wonderful time with good friends.

Thonotorose, I use a large area of my screen-greenhouse for the propagation of plants. I sometimes start seeds, buy seedlings, buy starter plants and grow them up in there. When I put in my pool I did it all myself and also made it into a large enough area for growing plants. The screened area is 50' by 40' and 15 feet high so it gives me plenty of room for my plants. If I get hot when working on the plants I take a dip, cool off, and go back to working on my plants. This picture shows the rows of tiered shelving of pots. It's my own little garden center. Lou

Well, we can't post photos from Photobucket or Flikr. This is a real pain. I can find my stuff easily on Photobucket or Flikr, but it took me 35 minutes to find a photo that I wanted to post on the Antique Rose Forum this morning. The photos on my computer are in date order, but how do I remember which year I took a particular photo of a particular rose? Well, here are some random photos of parts of my garden. Daisy