And speaking of Tex-Mex, sometimes these cross-cultural experiences can become pretty scary. The last time we were in Paris DH wanted to go to a place called the Indiana Cafe in Saint Germaine. He had found it on the Internet & thought it had to prove that the French can be just as ignorant about geography as Americans, since the place serves (supposedly) Tex-Mex & is decorated with all sorts of ersatz Western art, photographs of Native Americans circa about 1870 in wigwam villages, etc. n(And yes we did ask and yes, the name Indiana does refer to the midwestern state.) We did wander over there & it appears to be wildly popular with a mostly twenty-to-early-thirty-something crowd. I had an outrageously expensive margarita that was sweet enough to require an insulin shot as a chaser (and apparently they didn't know that triple sec is a needed drink ingredient) and what was purported to be a burrito, but you could have fooled me. And the prices!! 12.5 Euros for three tacos sans beans or rice! And to make the culinary dislocation complete there were also curries on the menu. LOL! DH figured that they thought Indians from America or Indians from India - it's all the same, right?

Hello Bryan! Trish too! Sounds like you two are doing well. I've been absent from the forum for awhile due to several reasons. I really wrecked my back last fall(ruptured my L5, S1 disk) and went through pyshical therapy for 4 months in order to be able to work this year. I have avoided surgery for the time being and so far, this planting season hasn't been too awfully painful. I've added some new woodies to my "already too large for one person to manage" field. I put in 100 Avalanche lilacs, 50 Ruby spice summersweet, 50 Arnold red honeysuckle, 50 Guincho purple elder, 100 Saugeana Chinese lilac, 50 Calicapra beautyberry, 20 Exochorda pearlsbush, 50 Fothergilla mount airy, 50 French pussy willow, 50 Charles Joly lilac, 50 Pres Grevy lilac, 50 chinese lilac sunday, 50 Asessippi Lilac, and 20 Seven-son flower. That field has now grown to 9 acres of woodies. I started it 5 years ago and I'll finally be able to harvest my snowball viburnum, cranberry viburnum, blue muffin viburnum, pee-gee hydrangea. I will also be able to harvest some lilacs; Sensation, Beauty of moscow, Wedgewood blue, Monge purple, Mount baker, and Pocahontas. Some of my baptisia crosses will flower for the first time this year as well, so I will finally see what the hybrids look like. The annuals are prety much the same as most with Suns, Zins and glads making up the bulk of the main event flowers. I should have about a 1/2 acre of butterfly milkeed this year. That orange always looks great with the purple hoary vervain and suns. I also have the rest of my natives to compliment the boquets. Due to my back injury, we didn't do nearly as many wreaths last year, hopefully this year I can stay injury free. Trish, We might be taking a late summer trip to Michigan. Where are you located and would you mind visitors? Nice to read all the info and see what people are up to again. It gets me amped up to get er' done! Take care, Steve

Amy, Currently, my rows run east-west, with raised beds that are 4' or 5' wide by 35' to 50' long, depending on what part of the garden we're talking about. I plant double rows in each raised bed, with the 2 rows offset from one another so that the tomato plants are not sitting there in evenly matched pairs. I get enormous numbers of tomatoes and whether a plant is shaded by a row that sits to its south or north seems to be immaterial. I have grown them every which way since we moved here---in single rows, in double rows, widely spaced, spaced in double rows as matched pairs, spaced in double rows offset from one another, and even in large circles a la' Japanese tomato ring style. I've grown them in full sun from sunrise to sunset, and I've grown them in full sun from sunrise to 1 p.m., at which time they become shaded by the pecan tree to their west when I plant them at the west end of the garden. I've grown them in the back yard where the house and trees shade them until about 10 a.m., and then they get full sun until about 5 p.m., and then are in dappled shade after that. Guess what ? They grew just fine and produced just fine no matter how I spaced them or placed them. So, don't overthink it because you are likely to get a great crop no matter which way the rows run. With our high temperatures and intense sunlight that persist for months on end some years, tomato plants actually benefit from some shade during the worst part of the summer, which in my garden usually is from mid-July through mid-August. In a hot dry year like 2011, 2012 and 2013, I usually erect shade cloth (40% or 50%) during the hottest time to protect the plants a bit from the heat. In 2014, when we had cooler temperatures and decent rainfall (still in drought, but rain did fall in the summer months), I didn't bother with shade cloth. I grow my plants in individual cages firmly staked, using both wooden stakes and green metal t-posts and don't have much trouble with the wind. An occasional thunderstorm with wind gusts 50 mph and above may temporarily have the caged tomato plants leaning this way or that, but they don't topple over onto the ground. I always use my taller plants, like tomatoes, corn and okra, to shade shorter plants (like peppers, green beans, peas, etc.) that benefit from being in dappled shade for at least part of the day. Here in OK with our high temperatures, full sun all day long is almost too much----and in a very dry year, it really is too much and I use lots of shading strategies to get the plants less sun, not more sun. So, unless you have man-made shade from nearby structures, wooden privacy fences, a neighbor's trees, etc., run the rows however you wish. I think you'll get great yields regardless. I experimented for years to see how much shade was too much in that it caused the yields to drop, and found I get great harvests as long as the plants get 6 hours of direct sun. I get pretty good harvests even from tomato plants that only get 4-5 hours of direct sun. My permanent raised beds all run east-west with the long sides being the north and south sides and that works best for me, but I cannot really say the plants did not produce well when I had beds that ran north-south with the east and west sides being the long sides. I got good production from those too. Because our property is a creek hollow with forests on three sides, I get a decent amount of wind protection, so can run trellises both ways without much trouble. Unlike Larry, I rarely have to worry about trellises blowing over in wet soil because we just are not blessed with the large amounts of rainfall that he routinely receives. I had beds that ran both ways for a while----more like a potager garden than a row garden, but as the drought years became increasingly more common, I got tired of having to run drip irrigation lines both east-west and north-south so changed all the beds to run east-west. Because of the slope of our property and garden, that was the best way to run the beds for even irrigation. So, work with your land and its own characteristics. You may not figure out what works best for a few years because you'll need to discover what works best for you in the very rainy years and in the very dry years. I had to do tons of soil improvement for over a decade before I felt comfortable with running all the beds north-south. Prior to that, rainfall still ran off too quickly without being absorbed, so I needed beds running both ways to slow down the runoff. Now that the soil has been through 16 years of amending and improving, rain soaks in much better and is absorbed quickly, so I no longer had to have beds running both ways to slow down the flow of the runoff. Zackey, Sadly, we can get really hot here but it is highly variable. Still, depending on where you are in Oklahoma, you may have to deal with high temperatures over 100 degrees for most to all of July and August some years. Some folks in western OK sometimes start hitting the 100s in June (or even in May). Some years (and this was one for much of the state) are relatively cool, with fewer days than usual with high temperatures of 100 or over. We get the best tomato harvests here when we plant early enough to beat the heat. I am sure y'all experience the same thing in Georgia where the temperatures get high enough to cause blossom drop on your tomato plants at some point every summer. In an average year, that happens in my garden around the third week in June. In a very hot year like 2011, we had high temps hot enough to impede fruit set on tomato plants beginning the first week in May. In a very cool year, we might not get temperatures that hot until August. So, you never really know what to expect, but generally we don't get the same weather two summers in a row. I try to get my tomato plants in the ground in early March, so that we start getting the first ripe tomatoes in late April. If I do that successfully, then by mid-June, we are in full-fledged tomato canning mode and, by the time it is getting insanely hot in July, all the canning is done and all we need is to get enough tomatoes in the worst heat to ensure we have fresh ones for eating. Unfortunately, for 7 of the last 8 years, we have had our last freezing temperature arrive very late at our house in southern OK in May, usually on May 3rd or 4th. (My average last frost date is March 28th.) So, we have to plant early to beat the heat but also be prepared to cover up the plants on a late cold night or two (or 10 or 12) even after we're already harvesting ripe tomatoes. It is crazy. I never would attempt planting tomatoes so early here nowadays without the use of floating row cover to protect them on those occasional exceptionally late freezing nights. Our spring weather has become increasingly erratic since around 2005. I wouldn't think our heat would be very different from Georgia''s, but then again.....I grew up in Texas only 80 miles south of where I now live in Oklahoma, and we thought a really hot day was 105 degrees. Only very, very rarely would we have high temperatures higher than that. In our first year here in southern OK, we had a week in August where it was 108 or higher every day, and I think we hit 111 two days in a row. In 2011, which was hotter and drier than normal, we hit 115 and 116 a few times. It was a miserable year for the tomato plants....and everything else, including animals and people as well as plants. We just learn to go with the flow...... Dawn

Hi Raybo...the names will show up if you put your cursor in the picture...I found it just takes two-three seconds for it to pop up. If it doesn't pop up, just move your cursor a little. Here's what I planted this year...not nearly as extensive as your list though!! SUPERSTEAK BRANDY BOY PORTERHOUSE AUNT GERTIES GOLD KELLOGG'S BREAKFAST WHOPPER CR CHEROKK PURPLE LEMON BOY BEEFY BOY BIG BEEF MARIANN'S PEACE BIG MAMA OPALKA ROCKY POLISH LINGUISA BLACK CHERRY MEXICO Hey Tim...I wanted more Big Beef but had trouble germinating them for some reason so I've only got two plants. Am looking forward to my first ripe ones after seeing your operation!! Hi Sooner...hope it works well for you. Send PICS as things progress. cheers all Bing