Not really sick of gardening or tired of it even. In NY no problem to keep a garden running all summer and producing also! Here in NC we go through what I call summer mode. Pretty much everything will die off, stop growing or be eaten faster than I can realistically deal with the bugs. Yes, even the best organic cures will not deal with all issues. I work this into the summer gardening routine. When the July/August heat and dry spell hit I let nature do its thing. Most everything is finished with at lest its first crop by then anyway! Besides as others mentioned it is brutally hot/humid and just standing in the shade looking at the garden can make you lose 2 pounds per hour. By that time of year I can make do with two cherry tomato plants, one regular and one or two of whatever else is still producing something. Pick the best and healthiest ones and I will let them go with water, once or twice a week and little else. Yes, I am cruel and mean to my plants. In July you get one or two days where it is only in the 80Âs so I use them and till the whole mess. Looks pretty barren with one or two plants poking up in a large plot! About now it is cooling down again. I did a fast shallow till to get the little weeds and am planning to plan the fall garden. Two gardening seasons is one way to look at it. First year in NC I did try to keep everything growing all summer, not a pretty sight and a ton of work hand watering. I am trying to work with the cycles we have and besides, who wouldnÂt like to do spring planting twice in a year!

I can tell you how to build a cheap trellis for vines to grow on and it really doesnt look too bad while you wait for the vines to take over. get some thin ( 1/2" or smaller diameter rebar and some pvc pipe. 20 foot lengths of each or good. PVC wants to bend in a specific U shape, put a length of rebar into the pipe and bring the ends together forming a large U. This is easiest with 2 people working together. Now the PVC pipe keeps the rebar from making any sharp bends and avoides needing a rebar hickey tool or jig. unsleeve the rebar and repeat with piece number 2. You now have 2 rebar pieces in the shape of a U with the same bend in each of them so they are symetrical. There is a few ways to stick them in the ground. I prefer to take that pvc pipe we used earlier and cut it off in about 1 foot sections and soften up the ground a bit then plant the pvc pipe in a vertical alignement and level it up and tamp all the darit back in around it. If you happen to have some metal pipe you can simply wack it into the earth and then pull it up empty out the dirt in teh middle and stuff it back into the ground. do this on both sides of the walkway you want to frame. after the pipe is secured in teh earth and pretty stiff, put one end of the rebar into the pipe, repeat at the other end. I then fill the pipes with soem ready mix or some portland cement. It keeps it sturdy, but its not hard to remove should you decide you no longer want this piece in your yard in the future. You can space the two rebar Us about 1 to 2 feet apart and then wire the top of each arch together. If you were so inclined you cuold run wires back and forth between the two all the way to the ground. Or if you have access you could weld some rebar between the two to form a ladder of sorts for the vine to grow up and around. Iv done this a few times and it works great. I also like to paint them, normally white with some rust inhibiting spray paint once they are in the ground. Id include some pics but I dont have any. Even teh finished ones as I do some landscaping work and have doen ti at clients homes instead of my own. I do have one planned for this summer in the next 2 to 3 months and since I started doing this for money I keep good pics and details on the jobs so Ill try to remember to come back and post this when I get around to doing the job. Im great at coming up with ideas to make somethign work, but crap for typing, cut me some slack on that front :p

Lucy, a screen house is like a screened in room. It's a free standing structure with a tent like covering and zippered screen sides. We have a horrible mosquito problem up here in New England and you can't sit outdoors during the evening or early morning with out protection. I have a small pond and don't spray the garden with insecticides in order to not harm bees, wasps, butterflys, or other beneficial insects. So with out the screen house we couldn't enjoy the garden or outdoors during peak mosquito hours. It also provides some shade protection for some of my house plants that summer outdoors. I'm seriously thinking of converting to natural gas for heating but it's a huge investment. I don't have the room for a wood or pellet stove but our neighbors saves over $1,000. last winter using one. I've cut back on the AC this summer in anticipation of winter heat bills.

Sherri, I'm also sorry for going afield on your thread when I found a two legged bamboo_rabbit in my back yard that loves blueberries too. I would say we three are blueberry lovers. I didn't answer to your question because I grow my blueberries in containers in my screenhouse, and not outdoors all the time, that could make a difference. I put them outdoors after the fruiting season (around mid summer)and leave them out all winter only bringing them back in the screenhouse when they set fruit so the birds don't get to them. billbrandi, I would have some concerns about the chlorine vapors emanating from your swimming pool affecting the leaves on the blueberry plants, but If you are using the ionizer method of pool maintenance then that wouldn't be the source problem of leaf yellowing. bamboo_rabbit, I also crowd my pepper plants in my 5 gallon pails. I sprinkle seeds in the pail growing mix that I make, lightly cover the seeds with coir, sprinkle on water and then let them fight it out for dominance. The strong survive and usually set good peppers. I have another pot started for the fall season. I love my western 'sammiches', eggs from my chickens, peppers & onion etc. from my garden, ham from from my kids raising pigs. It sure don't smell like heaven 'round here but it tastes heavenly. Lou