Charles, I'll be 69 this year and have citrus in heavy 22" clay pots. I also have figs in half whiskey barrels. Been rethinking that one. Anyway my husband and I move them with a 2 wheeled cart (dolly). I think that I could move the clay pots by myself if I had to - probably not the half whiskey barrels. The leverage is all wrong. If worst comes to worst, I'll top and root prune the plants to fit them in smaller pots, sort of bonsai them over time. I suppose when I get very old I may not be able to grow the plants that I like but I intend to fight it. Buylady, We move the citrus out in the Spring about mid-April and back in in the Fall about October 7th. The timing is based on frost dates here. Because the moves are only twice a year, it may be easier to coordinate it with your helper than this year. Cath

The biggest issue is fungus gnats. Tiny black flies that love to live indoors or out and infest every single plant even if its in a pot. They are smaller than fruit flies. Outdoors, I use a form of Bt and also benefical nematodes as I used to get a LOT of these fungus gnats, they even get inside the leaf layers of brussles sprouts, which are not good eating when you see tiny back flies in the cooking water. Indoors, when I start seeds, I use a mix of seed starting soils, like Natural Beginnings from Gardens Alive, as well as a Jiffy mix that is sold by the bag through sevral web sites, and even shreaded coconut husk fibers called coir. These are all quite 'clean' and have little to no real soil in them. They help hold just the right amount of moisture too. The fungus gnats usually come from outdoor soils, lay eggs in the soil that turn into tiny maggots and these feed off the tender roots of any plants. Thats one reason you see house plants suddenly dieing for no apparent reason. To check indoor plants, I use yellow sticky traps that rest horizontally on the edges of the pots. After just a couple of days, these traps can become loaded with tiny black gnats! Outside is where I use a form of Bt and also water in the beneficial nematodes that live in soil and go after the fungus maggots. My garden soil here isn't perfect, but if I can reduce harmful bugs from killing plants, its a big help. I use scent lures and sticky traps for my apples, peaches, and even cucumbers. Each sticky trap has a scent lure that attracts the pests common to these plants. Some plants and trees are highly resistant to diseases and bugs. Asian pears, asparagus, and blueberries to name a few. It may be better to head to a nursery/garden shop, as Home Depot and Lowes tend to offer a very limited amount of organic supplies. Here, we have only a very few products that are organic and most are for bugs (Neem) and disease control (Serende). The bags of soil offered by Miracle Grow tend to be a bit harsh as they simply use chemical equivilents to the real soil nutrients. I have a small leanto shed that stores corn gluten, fish meal, humate, kelp meal, and a few others. I use these as natural nitrogen additives, or in the case of humate, many minerals and micro nutrients. If you do plan to spray for any bugs that might be feeding on the leaves, try Neem. I wouldnt spray any herbs with anything unless the bugs are chewing holes in the leaves however. Bt, is a liquid mixed with water and has several different strains, of which one is for the gnat control. Ever hear of squash vine borers? These bugs bore into the base of squash vines and destroy the insides which cause the plants to quickly die. I have used another form of Bt and actually injected it into the main stems of squash plants, by using an insulin syringe. The Bt attacks the borers and kills them. Imagine a garden thats a living thing like us, it just can't survive all by itself if you want good yields and quality crops. I have only 2000 sq. feet of garden space, and there is also areas all around the edges of my garden that have fruit trees, or some permanent plants like asparagus and horse radish, which I harvest every spring. For your pot of cilantro, add some seeds every 2-3 weeks, so they can give you more than 1 or 2 harvests. Only thing is, if they are clumped together, they are hard to seperate if there are two stages of growth within each other. Indoors, I start about 60 petunia plants, 60 or so impatien plants, peppers, tomatos, basil, and a few others about mid April. This year, seedless watermelons with a necessary pollinator, as well as a few cantaloupe types. Brussels sprouts again too, but will be covered with a light weight white plastic fabric to block out the bugs, then my big batch of corn, which I plant every other year. I have a small tractor and a big rototiller to turn the soil over every spring, and work in any soil ammendments needed. Here is a link that might be useful: Natural Beginnings

Finally got most of my fling finds planted tonight, including replacement broccoli (aka Dawn's urban north broccoli outpost), garlic and several ornamentals. Also my pepper seedlings went in the ground tonight, too. Still have a few fling heirloom tomatoes but need to add compost and manure to the new spot for them. I have something I was unable to identify. There were three black square qt(?) sized pots, and I believe they were labeled on the table underneath but don't remember the name. I recall they were some sort of shade item, green strappy leaves, maybe with lily in the name? I am having a hard time figuring them out, but picked them out thinking "Ah! Perfect spot under the elm tree for them." Now if I only knew what they were... If that sounds familiar to anyone, it'd save me from dragging the camera out. Thanks!

First as creekside said you *have* to be sure of the boundaries if you don't already have them surveyed. Then as lwo said you have to determine about running power - how far off the road (how long a driveway) do you plan? Contact the electric company and see what they charge - you may want your house closer to the road than originally planned, over a certain distance you will require a transformer (and of course more digging/conduit or poles). Then once you have an idea of how long the driveway will be, you can walk with engineer to determine where best to site the house - he should be able to give you an idea of suitable sites (avoiding ledge, wetlands, etc.) though sometimes ledge can lurk where you least expect it (ask me how I know!). He'll do the perc tests to find out where best to put the septic and what design will have to be. You may also have to hire a soil scientist and a surveyor to then go out and mark wetlands and proposed foundation/septic/driveway locations to bring to planning and zoning and/or wetlands commission. Of course you have to have an idea in mind of what the foundation size and shape will be. Although our preliminary site plan showed we were more than required distance from stream, our engineer *and* soil scientist as well as DH had to attend wetlands commission meeting (at $100/hr each, they got to us at the end of the meeting). Be prepared to pay $$$ and build in plenty of time for delays. B/c the commission only meets once per month and we had an ice storm the day in Feb they planned to meet, we did not get reviewed until March meeting, and we could not start clearing land until we got their approval so we lost a month. Once we had the site cleared and started digging we hit ledge and had to move the house (took some doing, since we couldn't change approved septic site w/o losing even more time), clear more, dig and pray the new location would allow us to have full 9ft basement. Since we were doing modular builder said we couldn't change house/garage plans w/o impacting schedule, we had to keep all windows, garage orientation the same, so tried to shift foundation SW without changing passive solar design/orientation. This from 100 miles away, looking at site plan while on the phone with excavator! So we ended up with 3ft door walkout on gable end, 4ft change in elevation, instead of 11ft drop with walkout (bigger door) in back. At least I was GCing all the sitework myself so we could change the foundation plan and the driveway length/curve. As far as well, our driller said you never know what you're going to find until you start drilling. Be prepared for cost overruns there. Our neighbor's well produces so much he can't use it fast enough (with 2 teenage girls!), he had to put in an overflow. We took 3 tries to find decent amount of water (used other 2 wells for geothermal), then we had to hydrofracture. GT wells are 279ft each and water is over 500ft.