Lots of good advice here! The larger the pots, the better. 20-gallon pots are not too big. You can get those brightly-colored tubs with the rope handles (anywhere but WalMart - theirs are thin, cheap, weak) for $8-9, the same kind except heavy-duty tubs for use around livestock (~$23), Rubbermaid totes in all sizes, and synthetic fabric Smart Pots (~$8). All but the Smart Pots will need to have drainage holes drilled in them. Check your local phonebook for hydroponic supplies, as many of them seem to be selling the Smart Pots. Just remember that anything that isn't designed for outdoor use or for plants is not going to be UV-resistant, and will get brittle after a year or three, and self-destruct (maybe sooner if you have large, rambunctious dogs). If you or a friend has a pickup truck, forget the bagged potting soil and buy a cubic yard of soil from a place that sells landscaping materials. One cubic yard will fill about 10 20-gallon pots much more cheaply than buying by the bag. Don't assume --ASK what their soil consists of. And tell them what you're doing with it (planting vegetables in pots). If they're honest, they should help you out with selling you the right stuff. Get some good organic fertilizer and follow the directions. Feeding more than they advise is not better. For fall peas, call a Master Gardener at your local Cooperative Extension Office and ask what is the best fall date for planting peas -- they should know. If you need a snail/slug bait, look for Sluggo, Worry-Free, any with an active ingredient of iron phosphate, which is basically non-toxic to kids and pets (but NOT if they eat it by the spoonful -- scatter it thinly). AVOID any of the cheap metaldehyde-based snail baits which are deadly to kids, pets and wildlife. Sue Here is a link that might be useful: Baltimore Master Gardener Program

Hillell... here's what I advise all who ask how to make a compost heap. Get seven scrap shipping pallets. Wire them together to form two bins - attached to one another. If you're right handed, start filling the right bin with brown stuff and green stuff... all you can find. I get most of my brown stuff from leaves I drag home in the fall. I leave them in the bags out in the rain and snow. If they don't have any holes in them, punch a few so the leaves can get wet and start to decompose. Throw in vegetable based kitchen waste, garden waste, grass clippings etc, then add a bag of leaves and and a little bit of garden dirt or forest floor litter that is black. It contains the bacteria to get the whole pile cooking. You need to keep a lid (chunk of old plywood) on it to control how much moisture gets in... but you do need to keep it moist - not soggy. Just before you close up camp, unwire the front panel on the bin you have been working on and fork it into the adjacent bin. Try to get the outside dryer material onto the inside of the new pile. Water it as necessary. Cover and go back to the city. Next spring you should be able to spread it on your garden. Some of it may be a bit coarse, but that won't hurt anything, or you can pick it out and throw it back into the first bin. I purchased a shredder MANY years ago and it was a great investment. I shred all the cooked compost before applying it to my garden. Main thing is to keep it simple and keep the work to a minimum. I have been composting in this manner for forty years and it has worked wonderfully well. Have fun too... don't spend all your time tending your compost... It will tend itself. Green stuff + brown stuff + water = great compost. BTW, to keep my pile moist I do this... we keep a one gallon pail under the sink and all the day's waste goes into it. Every morning I fill the pail with waste water from whatever I'm doing around the sink... then out it goes to the heap. I put it in a different spot each day in a methodical fashion so I know where the water went. Works well. Here is a link that might be useful: Lively Dirt - The Garden Blog

My advice is to leave everything as is. The ones that are unmulched are probably about to break ground, but they would naturally be slower because the ground there has been cooler. The ones that are above ground but under the hay mulch will get damaged by wind and sun if you remove the mulch now, so let them come above the hay naturally, and then they will green up and should grow OK. But they will need that mulch for supporting the stems. Next year if you mulch them all or not mulch them all, you might see them sprouting at more-or-less the same time. But even then different locations with different exposures, sun etc, will give varied results. My crocuses in front of the house in sun and protected from wind are almost blooming, while the ones on the other side of the house aren't even showing leaves above ground yet.

Hi CheeseWhiz, Welcome to RMG! Good advice above! About the only small fruit that would be difficult (to impossible) to grow around here would be blueberries, because of their need for acidic soil. Most other things should do well for you. And, as said above, almost all veggies grow well around here--the more organic matter there is in your soil, the better they'll do. In addition to the things mentioned above, I'll add the root crops, beets, carrots, and parsnips. and I'll add wax beans to Digits' green beans. Both VERY easy to grow. In my experience lettuce and spinach need a fairly good soil to succeed--mine always bolt immediately and I attribute that to the heavy clay I have grow most of my stuff in! Next year definitely grow a few tomatoes! There is absolutely no comparison of store-bought "tomatoes" with the REAL THING! Once you grow some you won't be able to live without them again. And nobody has mentioned cukes which are easy to grow too. You can also grow all the basic herbs--basil, chives, parsley, etc. I will dispute one thing Digit said! (Sorry, Digit!!!) I don't have kids, but from what other folks I know have said, it seems to be an interesting phenomenon that when kids participate in the gardening they seem to suddenly start to like veggies they never liked before! Helping to grow them, and watching them grow seems to have a "supernatural" effect that changes the "flavor" for kids! So I'd say even if you think they won't eat it, try at least a little bit of everything, and you may be surprised at what they suddenly decide is yummy! Keep an eye on RMG for threads about the different veggies. And we usually have at least a couple different tomato threads every year. If you're wondering about something in particular, just ask and somebody around here is bound to come up with an answer for you. Since this year is almost over, you'll have all winter to plan how you want to start next spring! Keep an eye out for seed catalog threads over winter--when we're all dreaming of next spring! I'm in Thornton on the way north end, BTW! Skybird P.S. Welcome, Blossom, to RMG, too!