Our native roadside sunflowers seeded in my tomato bed a few years back. I left it grow by accident (was a very busy summer) and realized there were NO tomato horn worms! I figured this for a fluke, so the next year I rotated the toms and transplanted a self-seeded sunflower. Aha! NO tomato worms! Now I always plant a native sunflower or three around the tomato bed. Self seeding is a problem, but they are easy to pull. The small city birds love the seeds in the fall. The woody stems make excellent plant stakes, cut to size, to hold up the heavy sweet peppers. Other plants don't really like to grow around the sunflower roots, but the tomatoes don't seem to care. Don't know if the named sunflower varieties would behave differently. I'm glad I discovered this property of our native sunflower 'weed'.

GLORY HOLE!!!! My Daughter lives in Slidell.. You will LOVE and so will your plants! If you go down by the Quarter you will see trees that are 30' tall and really put on a show!!! You will do GREAT!!! Congrats!!! You will do fine and WELCOME!!! Kylie

It's my second year vegetable gardening as well, and I'm loving it! If only the sun would come out! Fruit Trees: *Cherries *Melrose apple *Redfree apple *Peaches *blueberries (multiple varieties) In raised beds: *Lettuce/greens: black seeded simpson, green oak leaf, red deer tongue, Australian yellowleaf, cracoviensis, rouge d'hiver, merlot, arugula, spinach *Tomatoes: black giant, black, bali, red russian, eva purple ball, russian 117, yellow peach, stupice *Peppers: gypsy, jalapeno *Winter squash: small sugar pumpkin, potimarron, musquee de provence *Summer squash: ronde de nice *Beans: vermont cranberry, rattlesnake, purple, jacob's cattle, agate soybean *Peas: green arrow *Carrots: dragon, atomic red, scarlet nantes *Onions: rossa di milano, generic white sets *Potatoes (in wine buckets): russian blue, french fingerling, alaskan sweetheart, caribe, german butterball *Cucumbers: lemon, armenian, boothby's blonde, straight eight, tondo di manduria Herbs: *greek oregano *italian parsley *lemon thyme *rosemary *mint *cilantro *garlic chives Still to go in: *Rosa bianca eggplants (under lights) *Genovese & Christmas basil (under lights) *Long Island Improved Brussel Sprouts (from seed) Beans: Rossa di Milano onion: Greens:

The weather has been nice the last few weeks and I decided to work on the New Orleans garden some more. I really want to "finish" it this year, and I want it to be stunning! So I began digging out most of the plants that aren't going to stay here. I also moved out the whiskey barrel water garden and then dismantled the rock wall behind it. That was a real chore, busting up the rock wall and hauling the heavy rocks out of the garden. But it took up space that I had plans for. You see, in that spot right there is a concrete ramp that used to go into a storage building that was sitting where the guest bedroom is now. When we rebuilt the house, we couldn't get this concrete slab up and it has always annoyed me. There's valuable dirt underneath it and I wanted to plant it! But I follow the Marine motto, adapt, improvise and overcome. The slab was perfect for the whiskey barrel water garden. And now it's perfect for a couple of iron filigris chairs. I don't allow smoking in the house, so this area is now the new "smoking area". The chairs on this side of the "alley" are in the shade. And my brother can now sit there and smoke. And the unique "butt man" I bought for $3 at a yard sale is strategically placed next to them. And here's the new, improved, overall view of my "blank canvas": My plans are to fill this area with assorted herbs and a couple of tomato and pepper plants. I'll also have planters on the walls spilling over with assorted mints. All plants I plant here will be edible or useful in some way. I plan to put some kind of grid (sorta like lattic but a bigger pattern and sturdier wood) over the garden for an arbor-like roof. I also intend to use a similar grid pattern to enclose the open end and make an arched entrance to add to the elegance I have envisioned for this garden. Any suggestions you guys might have to further enhance my French/New Orleans theme would be greatly appreciated. Any ideas for plants would be great too. Any ideas on what to do about the ugly gutters? They've really got to go, but I need some kind of gutter system. Otherwise, this area floods and drains under the guest bedroom and can cause the floor to buckle. But the current system, altho effective, is just plain ugly. I've just bought some more trim paint so I can repaint all the trim on the house. As you can see, it definitely needs to be touched up.