myoneandonly- Most of my containers ar 16". I have a couple of 20" ones as well. You're right - just about ANYTHING can be grown in a container! The plant (with a bad case of powdery mildew) behind the bench is a pumpkin plant. I actually grew 2 little pumpkins! Here's one - Last year I grew a cantaloup. June8 - There are over 100 containers. In the winter, most of them stay out there. I dig up the callas & dahliahs & store them in my mother's basement. The cannas & tuberose are over-wintered there as well, but they stay in the pots. Some things, like the geraniums I bring indoors. Most of the other perennials are hardy for my zone & just come back each year. While I'm technically zone 6, I buy as if I'm zone 5. I read somewhere years ago that one should lower the zone# by one when using containers. (when they are going to be left out) As for arrangement - I figure it out on paper. Although it's hard to tell in the photo, there's a path that winds from left to right (in front of the vine pole) back to the bench. You can see it better in this shot. This was mid-June '05.

I have a small (4 by 12 foot) veggie garden here in Huntington Beach. We're about a mile, mile and a half maybe, from the beach, as the crow flies. I feel ya when you talk about the June Gloom, but the last two mornings of sun have given me some hope! I put in two tomato plants in early March, an Early Girl and a San Diego. Both have now outgrown their cages (I should know better than to use those scrawny things, oh well!). The things were growing so much that I just couldn't keep them stuffed inside the cages, and I'm not a pruner, so really they're just sprawling now. They have many fruit set and have many more blossoms, although the San Diego has more than the Early Girl; I expected it to be the other way around. I suspect that the June Gloom has contributed to the bit of blossom drop I've had, but the plants are putting out so much new growth and new blossoms that I'm not worried about it. Now, I'm just waiting for some sunnier mornings to help that fruit ripen. I had sown some seeds of carrots and green onions when I planted the tomatoes, but those have been overrun by the toms. I also put in a bell pepper plant in early May, also overtaken now. I have a few stalks of corn as well (I hand-pollinate), which so far the tomatoes haven't reached. Oh, and my four little cucumber plants (2 Straight Eights, 2 Lemon) are struggling to get started next to the tomatoes, which I have cut back some to keep them out of the makeshift cucumber trellis. To tell the truth, I'd rather have the tomatoes, so I'm just pretty much letting them go where they want to! So far, I've avoided powdery mildew, which plagued me the first time I tried growing tomatoes here, so I'm happy! Had a few holes chewed in some leaves, probably by cabbage loopers or maybe hornworms, but so far the sparrows have kept that in check, and with so much foliage, I'm not too concerned. Haven't had to break out the BT yet, and I hope I don't have to! I agree Bejay, that I prefer this forum to the California one. California has SO MANY different zones, climates, and growing conditions that it just doesn't really help. You really have to clarify an adviser's location, as someone's experience with their gardens in, say, Riverside, San Francisco, or Bakersfield doesn't help me as much as someone's in coastal Orange County. While California does differ greatly from the rest of the US in that we have a long, if not never-ending, growing season in many areas, I think forums for each major zone would be more helpful to those of us living here!

Most of the time I am an organic gardner but not over iris borers. When I spot them I dig up the clump and cut out all rotted areas and trim the leaves to healthy parts and fungicide them. It postpones bloom for a year with some irises but not others. I do not dig up all the clumps not showing a problem however for most seem healthy and usually I do not get the borers back again for many years. What is bothering me this year is slugs and snails all over the iris. Never had that problem before and that might be from rain, rain, rain so I stomp, stomp, stomp the offenders.

So I finally made it to the local nursery last night (we have 18 month twin boys to keep us busy, need I say more ;-) and one of the gardeners there gave me her thoughts. Its a large nursuery, been in business a long time here though they do get their tomato starts shipped in... I brought in a fairly representative branch of the symptoms my plants are exhibiting. The lady said it looked more like sun burn than late or early blight, and definitely not mildew. Moreover, given that the first sign of disease was well over two weeks ago, all of the plants would be dead by now if it was blight (I did spray with copper two weeks ago, and the sulphur-fungicide that I sprayed last weekend did absolutely nothing). When she mentioned sun burn, I explained about their location next to a reflective wall and the much higher temps I was getting there than in the rest of the back yard. We've been having lots of hot weather these past two weeks, and some days the leaves would be fully drooped over and perk up again in the evening. Also I suspect that in general I have failed to give the plants adequate deep waterings as usually my watering consists of going back and forth with the hose garden wand to all of the plants for 20 minutes or so... Could the browning and crisping be simply inadequate watering compounded by the high temps (a number of days it got over 100F) and reflective glare? The leaves are still turning brown but at a very slow pace, making me believe that further that it is heat related (its cooled down a bit and I've been watering deeper). Anyways, there's a little update, any more thoughts to add??? And the Bali tomato plant still shows absolutely no signs of any probs whatsoever... Jamie