Good for you sorting out what issues you want to deal with and planning this way. Its possible to buy some of the commercial green bean varieties, I think Contender is one of them. Look for the type that set their beans in clusters either above or below the leaves. The thing is, commercial bean varieties are bred for uniform ripening and ease of mechanical harvesting with flavor a long way down the priority list. You'll get much tastier beans from varieties that are intended for home garden use. Blue Lake is a very popular, tried-and-true variety. Your local farm supply store is likely to carry varieties that do well in your area. Check out the bulk bins rather than the racks of little envelopes. I don't know about Colorado, but when I was in zone 5 in Massachusetts I had great results with Royal Burgundy (an improved version of Royalty), purple-pod beans. They are a lovely purple raw but turn green when cooked and have the advantage of being easy to pick because they are more visible against the leaves. If Mexican Bean Beetles are a problem in your area purple and yellow beans are less attractive to them. I used to plant Contender as a sacrificial variety to keep the beetles busy while I harvested the Royal Burgundy and the Dragon Langerie (aka Dragon Tongue). There are a number of early tomato varieties that can ripen in even the shortest summers. Its been a while since I've gardened in zone 5, but Oregon Spring comes to mind and I know that the past 10-15 years have seen the spread of a lot of Russian tomato varieties that do well in shorter, cooler summers. Some of the early-ripeners are smaller in size, but Early Girl is a time-tested, early-mainseason tomato in a quite decent size. The really big, longseason beefsteaks may not work out for you though. In theory, your local nurseries would carry varieties that do well in your area and if you can find a place that starts their own that theory could work out. Unfortunately, its increasingly common for large, greenhouse conglomerates to capture the market and supply the same varieties to everyone. So you'll need to do your research before you shop. PS -- I've never had to deal with groundhogs or gophers, but my mother-in-law had success with a .22 rifle.

We grew a new-to-us variety of squash this year called "Dinosaur Eggs". They don't get very big but boy, are they prolific, even in the awful weather we had this year. Most everything else went belly-up but these guys are STILL producing! So they are on the must-grow list for next year. The rest of my grow-again list is: Magda squash - not quite as prolific as DE but still outperformed zucchini and straightneck yellow (those 2 are out) Peas - Now or Later. We were super impressed with both production and taste Swiss Chard - Bright Lights. Love the flavor and the colors. Basil - Nufar and Lettuce Leaf. One for cooking and the other for just what it sounds like. It is SUPER on sandwiches. Parsley, both curly and Italian Lettuce - any of the mixed packages. I love the different colors and textures. Tomatoes - Estler's Mortgage Lifter, SunSugar and Black Cherry, not sure about what other varieties. Had a horrible tomato year this year so I didn't get to save any seeds for anything except the SS. All the ones in the garden died, but this volunteer came up IN THE DRIVEWAY (which is mixed gravel and sand, not concrete). It was very small but very healthy and determined to produce so I figure if it was strong enough to survive where it did, hopefully it will do well next year in a better location. I have about 2 dozen seeds I saved from it. Beans - bush - either Top Crop or Contender; runner - Scarlet. We grew the Scarlet Runners more or less just for fun because we'd never grown pole beans before. I only planted 12 seeds along the fence but we got beans for several meals just from those 12 plants. In fact, it is still blooming! I think I will also try some Kentucky Wonders for taste comparison. Corn - but probably a different variety than what we tried this year. Probably Peaches & Cream. Peppers - Banana, and bell, just not sure what varieties yet. On my no-more list are cabbage, broccoli, melons, beets and carrots. None of those have done well in the last few years and I am not going to waste real estate on them any more. As far as new things, I'm not sure yet. I am sure, however, that when the catalogs start rolling in in the next few weeks I will find more things than I have room for that I'd like to try! Edie

Hank, I have grown tomatoes for 25 years on my own, and grew them with my parents and grandparents for virtually my whole life, and I have NEVER had such a bad weather year for tomatoes....although there were a couple of rainy years in the 1970s that came close to being as bad as this year. Tomato yields were affected negatively by the weather in several ways, including: 1) Very Late freezes, including some very late sleet and snow, killed a lot of plants that were already in the ground. The colder soil temps then drastically slowed down regrowth and stunted the plants. This is the worst thing that can happen to tomato plants...even some of the ones that survived remained somewhat stunted and slow to produce. 2) Excessively wet weather impacted tomatoes in several ways, but primarily by keeping the soil so waterlogged that the roots could not grow. In addition, continuous heavy rains leached nutrients out of the soil big-time, so even the plants that survived sitting in waterlogged soil were nutritionally deprived and grew slowly for a long time. 3.) Excessive humidity made pollen sticky, causing it to clump and slowing down/preventing pollination. 4.) Excessive clouds slowed down both the growth and ripening of the tomatoes that eventually formed. Any single one of these four factors is enough to really mess up your tomato production, and having all four at once is highly unusual. I would say that we are unlikely to ever see such awful tomato-growing conditions again, but.....this is Oklahoma, after all, and our weather will do what it will do. Hopefully, though, we will have a better year in 2008 for growing tomatoes. As you learned this year, planting tomatoes at the earliest reasonable time is very important in our climate because we have such a brief period of time in the spring when the nights are warm enough for pollination to occur and the days are not yet too hot to slow down/stop pollination. I tend to plant too early as opposed to planting too late, because most years I can cover up plants and protect them from a late freeze, but you can't do anything to counter the effects of the heat. If you are only going to have 8 plants next year, you probably want the ones that are most productive, so you get the most tomatoes possible in the space you have. If I were growing eight plants and I wanted maximum production for the space available, I would probably plant these: 1. Better Boy--heavy production, excellent disease resistance, very reliable, good to great flavor 2. Jet Star--heavy production, good to great diseaese resistance, usually reliable, good to great flavor 3. Early Girl OR Bush Early Girl OR Early Girl Improved--early tomatoes, good disease resistance, good flavor. Of the three, Bush Early Girl always gives me the most tomatoes per plant. 4. Fourth of July (simply COVERED in 2 to 4 oz. tomatoes all summer long)--Very early producer that continues to produce all summer long, excellent disease resistance, and fair to good flavor. Please note when I describe the flavor as fair to good that they are not bad at all--and certainly taste better than ANY grocery store tomato. They have typical or average hybrid taste, and if you have never had the wonderful flavors of heirlooms, you would think these are perfectly fine. It it just that I am spoiled by the wonderful flavors of all the heirlooms, but most heirlooms produce 1/10th of the yield that Fourth of July will give you. Bloody Butcher is an heirloom that reminds me of 4th of July although it has not been quite as productive in my garden. 5. Sweet Million cherry OR Husky Red Cherry. You probably only need one or the other of these. Husky Red Cherry is a short internode plant. Sweet Million can easily get 8 feet tall if caged or trellised. Sweet Million will give you an abundance of smaller cherries. Husky Red Cherry will give you fewer, but larger, cherries. 6. Porter is a small tomato that is larger than a cherry but NOT a round beefsteak, more of an oval salad type. Fruit are reddish-pink and these plants produce all summer long no matter how hot it gets. They are very disease resistant and VERY heat/drought tolerant. 7. Burpee Porterhouse will give you the huge, tasty red tomatoes of your dreams. New on the market and one that has greatly impressed a lot of tomato maniacs. 8. Celebrity. Chosen for its outstanding disease resistance and reliability. If you could squeeze in 2 or 3 more, SunGold is a great golden-orange cherry that produces in about 57 days, Cherokee Purple and Black Krim are heirlooms that give you some of the tastiest tomatoes you will ever eat. Dawn

This year I went to great lengths to search out any unique heirlooms I could find locally (without having to start from seed). I planted like 60 plants, 13 varieties. Next year, I'm keeping it simple and I'm only planting Amelia, they by far surpass the others by consitant size, taste and they are more disease resistant (as far as I can tell so far). They hands down have put out the prettiest and tastiest tom's in my garden. I do like the small cluster tomatoes, they are a nice change, I will NEVER EVER AGAIN plant any kind of cherry tomatoe, they are just a big giant bug magnet. You may want to consider going to the seed exchange forum and try getting some unique seeds there.