Hiya Tomato and all, Thanks for the links and candidate ID's! Sorry it took a couple of days to reply--it's been a hellacious week at work. I'm really looking forward to spending some time in the garden this weekend (despite the chill in the air). Anyway, I think you're correct about the Shamel ash ID, thanks. I thought it looked like an ash, but didn't realize that Shamels were evergreen in the low desert. This plant certainly has been evergreen. My old work had some nice ash trees nearby but they were (are) deciduous and always dropped their leaves. I guess my little mystery plant is a self sown Shamel ash, thanks again. I'd better relocate it ASAP then as it's right on the edge of the patio Thanks again, tomato, gardeners are so generous with information, I'm always learning something every time I log in here. Happy gardening! Grant Here is a link that might be useful: Pics from my garden, Feb 2013

>> Maybe you should look at small scale rice production? :) Small scale? I figure I ought to go big or go home! Dam the south side and the along the east and west walls (sliding) then fill it with water. Add rice and shrimp, turn it into an aquaponics grow! Hey, with every door that closes, a new one opens. I only have about 140 linear feet in my backyard I can donate to peas/beans but that's probably as good as the 400 linear feet at the other garden - at least it is much better ground, plus I can water it if I need to. Another plus - it happened now instead of this summer when not only would I have invested a bunch of time, but been counting on the produce. So I will be delayed a couple of weeks longer. Worse things can happen! Mike

This is a voulnteer. I had plums, cherries and beef steaks last year..but I can't recall the names. I got them from a small nursery that did sell heirloom, along with hybrids. I remember trying to select heirloom types versus hybrid. And I rememer that the beefsteak grew pretty large, and wasn't super red when ripe. And it wasnt a perfect "round shape".. **** OK, so it's a volunteer and so any named variety we might come up with is out. Do you remember if any of the varieties you grew last year had potato leaf foliage as opposed to the more frequently seen regular foliage? Other than knowing if any of your varieties last year were PL, and without you being able to remember the names of the varieties you did grow I do think it's going to be impossible to ID what you have, not just to variety but as you asked originally, as to whether it's going to be a cherry or not. And a couple of us have said why we don't think it's a cherry and why, but I do hope you'll come back and tell us how it's developing and what it turned out to be b'c unless you grew a PL variety last year this plant is probably the result of a cross pollination and what you're growing is an F1 hybrid plant. And even that is dicey, meaning the X pollination, b'c in order to get a PL plant from random X pollination both parents would have to be heterozygous for the PL gene, ......, etc,but I'm going too far now, in trying to explain that which is really not necessary to try and explain. LOL What's important is how do you like what you eventually get from this plant. Carolyn

Root bound means the plants roots are over-crowded in, contained too tightly, in a container. You hadn't indicated if this plant was in ground or in a container. Since it is in a raised bed and given the history of its many problems - stem splitting, adventitious root development, BER, foliage margin death, superficial root development at soil level, etc. then best guess of its primary problem is inconsistent soil moisture levels - extremes ranging from excessively wet to far to dry and then back again to overly wet. All of those problems are caused by radically inconsistent soil moisture levels. Whether that is caused by weather, your watering practices, your soil's water retention/drainage issues or a combination of all of them I can't say. But you need to figure out how to stabilize it so that the plant's roots have a stable, consistent level of moisture available to them rather than them having to fight the two extremes all the time. You may need to make soil improvements so it drains better after heavy rains, you may need to make soil changes so that it retains water longer, you may need to radically change your method and frequency of providing water in both frequency and amounts, you may need to mulch and mulch heavily, etc. I can't say. But it requires monitoring of the soil moisture level several times a day until you can get a handle on it. If you water the plants and 12 hours later the soil 4-5" deep is dry then either they didn't get enough or the soil has retention problems. If you water and 2 days later the soil at 4-6" deep is still too wet then either you give them too much or the soil drains poorly. If it rains use a rain gauge and then check the soil 4-6" down to see how wet it is. In most cases rain alone does not provide enough water to plant roots because it is distributed or a wide shallow area. These are just a few of the investigations you need to do. But if stems spit it is due to extremes of water, if adventitious roots develop in large numbers it is due to too much water, if soil-level shallow roots develop it is usually due to too frequent shallow watering, etc. Dave