My buddy lives in Belmont (great microclimate). Me, I'm in Los Altos. Well, onions for sure. Buy sets from the big boxes and you will be in onions in the Spring. Great for dinner every night. Let's see, I paid ~ 6 bucks for 180 onion bulbs. 3 cents an onion? Can't beat that. Potatoes go in in February (cause that's when nurseries get them in...Wegman's in Redwood City). Ornamental Kale is good for color and form (better than good actually). Peas, yes. If you like Fava Beans, yes (highly recommended and a good soil refresher too...roots add nitrogen). As always, if you want to give the soil in your bins a rest and refresh, plant some cover crops now. Rye, vetch, or clover are good ones. Seeds in small quantities can be bought at Common Ground in Palo Alto. They have varieties of Fava seeds there too. I gotta go there soon actually.

Thanks guys!!!! The garden started out much smaller in my mind. My husband got out the tractor and the more area he tilled, the bigger the garden area grew. Then my daughter had her idea of pumpkins and things she wanted to try. It will be in full sun from 10 a.m. -5 p.m. The sun pattern will be east to west We do not have dogs but the neighbor has a sweet older dog that would be walking through the area. The garden is not too far from other gardens so watering is not a problem. I am trying to decide the best paths to make within the garden to make maintaining it a little easier. The biggest negative is that the plot backs up to a grove of trees. We are on acreage but due to our septic and leach fields being in the center of the land, I can not put a garden there. The plants will still get plenty of sun but not as much if the garden were centrally located. I appreciate all the advice!

Hi, I grow some heirlooms in Indianapolis and I am a member of the seed savers exchange, an organization that promotes the preservation of heirloom varieties. I am mostly affected with the "tomatoe bug" but other vegetables and plants catch my eye periodically. My name is Tom and my E-mail address is tsshh100@yahoo.com. Send me an e-mail with the type of imformation and seeds you are interested in growing.

-- Will these guys eat anything? -- I am not a flea beetle expert, but from what I have read some are fairly picky and target specific plants and their relatives, others are more generalist. The term flea beetle is a catch all term for pretty much any tiny jumping beetle looking thing. -- Maybe I should spray everything in the garden with the Bug-X stuff -- In general any insecticide organic or synthetic should be used as a last resort and highly selectively. If you find you consistently have problems on the radish then perhaps a preventative use on those is necessary to get a crop. I wouldn't treat anything else though unless you see not only damage, but damage to a degree that causes crop failure. Most plants can suffer enormous amounts of insect feeding and still do fine. The reason to not use insecticides except as a last resort is that they always kill more than what you want dead. In most cases the population of bad bugs in a garden is kept under control by nature. Plants may get eaten up, but usually survive and produce. Killing the bad bugs along with the good leaves a hole in the mini ecosystem and it is usually filled by more bad bugs that now have no natural predators controlling them and so you end up more dependant upon insecticides. Anyway, sometimes nature's balance isn't ideal for us and we use products to intervene. That's fine, but best results are obtained with the infrequent, selective use of those products.