gardeningwannabe, thank you so much for the kind words! It's really hard not to become paranoid to have people you don't know tramping through your yard critiquing..... we weren't planning on this for a few more years. What's worse is that my mother was on the tour last year and she's got 30 years on me and would be a perfect photo shoot for Southern Living..... Grrrrrr. Dawn, thank you so much for your input! You all don't know how much I appreciate all the "silent" knowledge I've drained from all of you over the past couple of years. My grandfather was born in Love county (see I am a lurker!) and we have a lake cabin down at Texoma. Is this something that you all would want to know about, experiment with us, hear our horror stories, successes? Let me know, and I'll post whatever everyone want's to see and hear! Thanks again for your input..... watch out because we have some really trouble spots to cover over the next 8 weeks! Alex

The 15" depth is good. I've never grown buttercrisp but if it's a leaf letuce, I harvest when I need a salad and it looks big enough to eat (smaller is usually better) if you're harvesting cut-and-come-again. Some types will also grow into a loose head (like green or red leaf lettuce from the store) and you can wait until it looks ready and cut the plant. With lettuce, if it gets too big or when the weather gets too warm and it bolts, it can get bitter. Sometimes you can soak the bitter out in cold water but not always. Just a heads-up :-) If you have access to good sweet corn and limited garden space, I wouldn't plant corn. Some varieties give one ear/stalk/season and some give two. The two foot bed width could limit corn success as it's generally advised to plant at least 4 deep for good pollination. Corn is wind-pollinated and if pollination is poor, your ears will be missing kernels. Sometimes missing more than they have. Lettuce can also be direct sown or if you prefer to transplant starts, it does well for me started on my covered front porch in a milk jug (wintersowing-style, even in spring or summer). If you like peas and/or beans, they tend do do pretty well without much trouble. Squash, cukes & zucchini may be a good place to start too though it depends how bad the bugs are where you live. Don't stress yourself out, gardening is sort of a learn-as-you-grow activity :-) Here is a link that might be useful: Tales of a Transplanted Gardener

Welcome, Joe! I'm about 6 hours north of you - north of Dallas, but have visited the San Antonio area several times. There are some good gardening links from other posters that will be very helpful to you. As far as the spiders, consider them friends since they will hopefully capture lots of mosquitoes in their webs. ;-) I've walked through my share of spider webs and it isn't fun, but don't get too upset since they're beneficial. I saw a nice size wolf spider making its way across my backyard this afternoon. Hopefully our dog didn't step on it and it made it safely to my landscape border. Right now I'm listening to our toad (thought it was a frog at first) who is sitting on our waterfall rock singing away trying to lure in a female toad. That's another beneficial critter in my yard. You will eventually find lizards around too, but I'm sure you had your share of those in Florida. Anyway, welcome to the Texas Gardening forum. We're all a friendly bunch of folks here who will be happy to answer your gardening questions and maybe you'll help us with some of our questions too.

For those following that have not seen her new post; link is below. Posted by emeraldisle624 (My Page) on Mon, Feb 11, 13 at 18:34 Hi everyone, I know I haven't posted much lately but I am here at least once a week seeing what you are all up to. I feel like I have been wishing the days away, trying to keep my mind busy and letting my body and medicine do it's thing. It's been a long 7 months since the endometrial cancer was first diagnosed. I had my 3rd and final d&c last week at MGH in Boston. Everything about the procedure went like clockwork, unlike the last time. I was the FIRST patient allowed into pre-op in what seemed like hundreds that showed up at 5:30am. The lobby at MGH was seriously like a bus terminal, never seen anything like it. I wasn't the first one to show up nor was I the first one to see the people in the surgery check-in lobby but somehow I got to be the first sent down to the nurses in pre-op and get a room/prepped for surgery (everyone else had been told to take a seat and they'd be called soon). Then I was the first one wheeled to surgery and then the first one discharged! I swear God was holding my hand and making things as easy for me as possible, I had an aura-type feeling about me all day. If it was just my imagination, it's ok I'll take it! I never saw or talked to my doctor, I think it was because everything was on schedule (or maybe even a bit early as my husband got the call at 8:30am that I was on my way to recovery) and they had me knocked out when she arrived. Breezed through recovery, out in record time just to go home and wait 7-10 days for the results. I had such anxiety leading up the surgery that my whole body hurt. I swear I hurt even more in this past week waiting, like I tensed up while sleeping or something. I didn't feel too stressed during the day while awake as I have been pretty good at going with the flow and trying to put my trust in having everything work out the way it's destined to. Since tomorrow is day "7" of the 7-10 days I was going to email the nurse and ask if any results were available yet. She knows I am anxious and that I would be waiting every last minute. Depending on the results, I'd either be scheduling an appointment with the fertility specialist or to have my inevitable hysterectomy. I got a call this afternoon that said "blocked" on my cell phone. My stomach dropped as I knew who it was going to be, the doctor or the nurse with my results. I just wanted to update you all that I will be calling my FERTILITY SPECIALIST to make an appointment to get in there as soon as I can for the next step. All of the pathology came back with no malignancy found! I even had her email me a copy of the report because I was so afraid that she called the wrong person and was giving me someone else's information! I have it in black and white, NO MALIGNANCY FOUND, in 2 different places next to my name! I of course couldn't stop crying and I was waiting for my husband to get home. He got home and the dog ran outside with him. He's getting the mail, chasing the dog, all these things while I am just patiently waiting for him to come in. And I told him the doctor's office called and quickly went to add that the cancer was gone, I am to stop my meds and get in touch with the fertility doctor tomorrow. I felt like I was dreaming. I thanked God so much for answering all the prayers that were said for me and for giving me this opportunity. I still have a long road ahead of me and there are absolutely no guarantees of anything. But I am going to try my hardest to make our dreams come true. I am so very thankful and humbled by everyone in my life (online and in person) who have reached out to me and helped me more than they will ever know. Please continue to keep me in your prayers, I hope there is a miracle in the making. I am on a short timeline and I should have a better idea after seeing the fertility doctor again soon. (I think the meds have to be out of my system 30 days but I don't recall exactly.) Sorry for the long post, I didn't want to leave a word out in case this and my other posts ever help someone else. I hope you are all doing well and please know I think of you all often. Your prayers and healing messages changed my life and today is living proof of that. I am by no means cured of cancer, in case anyone just diagnosed finds this thread by googling or whatever. The only thing that happened is the medicine counteracted the hormones and, in my fancy medical terms, chased the cancer cells down and ate them. So, slowly but surely, since I am no longer taking the hormones, the cancer will slowly grow back and there is no way to know how fast or slow that could happen which is why time is of the essence to get pregnant now. When/if I get pregnant, my body will naturally make huge doses of that missing hormone and actually protect me from the cancer during pregnancy. I will have to have a hysterectomy within a few months or after pregnancy no matter what due to the cancer risk. I can't grasp how remarkable our bodies are. Thank you again. emeraldisle624 Here is a link that might be useful: Just a quick update!