I do, and I aim for edible flowers if possible. I recommend: Chicory, or Italian dandelion - beautiful blue flowers on tall open stems. Nasturtiums - the petals make a really pretty pesto sauce (replacing basil leaves). Marigolds - the "Gems" are said to have the best flavor, I like other ones too, Queen Sophia, Tashkent, etc. You can use the petals in eggs, salads, sandwiches, etc. Calendula - pet bunnies love these. We can eat the petals too or make a nice healing skin balm out of them. Violas/Johnny-jump-ups and violets - edible. Some are fragrant. Feverfew, lovely clouds of white single or double flowers (they come in both forms). Pineapple sage, good for tea and the bright red flowers. Lemon verbena, good for tea and the tiny sprigs of flowers are fragrant too. Gladiolus - petals are edible. Snapdragons - petals are edible. Dianthus/Pinks, Carnations - edible. Most are fragrant too. Alyssum - petals are edible, flowers waft a honey fragrance. Single roses - I grow species Rosa arkansana "Peppermint," "Secret Garden Musk Climber," "Louise Clements" and a few others. Scented leaf geranium/pelargoniums have useful (edible, tea, potpourri) foliage and pretty flowers too. Hibiscus (tropical) - parrots like to eat these (I have one) and there is one you can make tea from the calyxes H. sabdariffa or roselle. Jasmine, you can flavor tea with the flowers. Opium poppies - gorgeous, some are breadseed sources (harvest the seedheads before they burst, otherwise they reseed themselves, not so bad). I admit, I like and grow "poisonous" flowers too: Plumeria (dogbane family), daffodils, Angel's Trumpets, Plumbago, Iris and more. There are so many, I don't think you can go wrong just look through a catalog or your local nursery and pick what you like.

I don't know what some of these post are talking about. A flea beetle is the size of a pin head, and they do not fly. However a can jump quite a distance for there size. Make sure there is no weeds or other vegetation around the plant. If you put down black plastic in a row and plant the eggplant through the plastic, that will help. One thing you can try is the sticky goo I use for the apple maggot fly. Use a piece of bright yellow plastic card covered with the goo. They are attracted to the color and will get stuck in the in the goo. Depending on the number of beetle, you might have to replace the card or clean it. Vegetable oil is use as a solvent for the goo and then some soap and water. reapply the goo. I would use a piece a card 4" x 6" at each plant.

I started some of my tomatoes, two types of pumpkins, amaranth, tepary beans, chiles, sunflowers and scarlet half-runner beans from seeds/grains that I collected from store-bought vegatables or purchased as dry goods. You may run into hybrids unless you know your varieties and what their seeds should look like. Try saving the seeds from farmer's market vegatables and/or from vegatables bought at Oriental or Hispanic stores. Higher-end specialty stores will sell heirloom vegatables as well. (Good way to collect heirloom tomatoes seeds.) I patron a middle eatern market that sells grains in bulk and they carry two types of (raw) sunflower seeds. I heard of many having success planting raw peanuts. (Get to know the cycle of a peanut plant first because of their growth habits.) Worried about Mexican produce? Don't be. Mexico banned growing GM crops in their country. You may only run into natural hybrids. One of the best things I did was joining one of the main gardening clubs in my city. At times there is seed exchange or small club sale where everything is gotten at a very good price. You can always ask if anyone has extra seeds they wouldn't mind sharing. (It's good to network!) I learned most of my tricks in gardening from those who have been doing it for years. Gardening in Phoenix does not run on the same time frame and watering schedule as the rest of the country and tapping into this type of knowledge-base within the club membership has been priceless. Getting inexpensive seeds is great, but they aren't worth much if you don't know how to grow them well. Something to watch out for ... cheap seeds may have low propagation rates and may be the reason they are so cheap. Best to be looking for "Seed Donations and Exchanges".

This is an interesting thread. I am going to guess that there are several "single clove garlics". I think I have one, too, but it is a standard garlic that stays single clove by apparent culture. I planted very small cloves off full bulbs at the beginning of June this past summer. This particular type seems to produce scapes and cloves very easily if fall planted to winter over, but the cloves I planted in June never were cold treated. They were last of the previous years harvest of a feral I collected in Iowa. Original bulbs were tiny with very tiny cloves. Proper spacing and fertilization has increased the size for fall plantings very nicely. Bulbils are about the size of a pea; so they are nice sized, too. Back to the June planting. Every clove sprouted very quickly and grew to about foot to 14" tall. Not one ever sent up a scape, and the plants never went dry. Nor did any of them ever divide. Just this past week I dug a few and found two distinct types, both still very well rooted by the way - I couldn't pull em I had to dig em up. About half looked more like scallions with very little bulbing and these had the thicker stems. The thinner stems had singleton rounds up to close to an inch and a quarter, larger than even the first true bulbs I originally collected. Not one of this planting has divided nor scaped and the plants are still normally green going into winter. I am leaving about half of the original bed in place to see how they handle the Minnesota cold from a summer planting. They took care of themselves just fine in the zone 4 of NW Iowa for almost 30 years; so I am not too worried their hardiness. This seems to be one of several ways to grow solo garlic (I hope). I definitely expect that different kinds of garlic respond to vernalization differently or require different types of vernalization and probably respond differently to day length as well. I am going to try spring planting on some spare tulip bulbs, too, next summer. A little more size going into autumn would be nice for my Appeldoorns, hoping I can add bulb size, if I sacrifice the vernalization needed for the flowers.