Gabrielll, purple flowers are French Lavender, I naturalized that many years ago, deer don't eat it. My regular garden is fenced and I have some plants in containers, they don't bother too much, except petunias, they are deer candy.

I just saw this thread. For a few years, I tried making my own paste by running the tomatoes through a food mill to remove seeds and skins, then taking the resulting thick juice and putting it in plastic picnic plates, then into the food dehydrator. Its not that easy, too deep in the plates it ferments before it tries, to shallow you end up with 'tomato leather'. But with practice, it was reasonably easy to come up with a decent paste. But its a whole lotta work for not much paste. The reasons I tried was to get a better tasting result, figuring that most store-bought tomato paste comes from mechanically harvested hybrid plum tomatoes that are picked at the convenience of the factory, which is why so many of them taste like cardboard. LIke others, I've found that just buying a few cans of tomato paste and adding it as a thickener is the way to go. I usually stick with Contadina, which seems to be pretty consistent with good flavor. Far better than anything else I've tried. Each season, we can 100 or so quarts of thickened, tomato-based sauces. With that amount, I buy tomato paste in #10 cans, by the case of 6 - even with shipping, its half the cost of buying those 12 oz cans in the store. I open a can, divide it into plastic bags each holding two cups, one bag is enough for a 10 wt batch of sauce. They can easily be frozen.

I meant just outside during the warmest part of the day on warm sunny days.Its just too cool outside at night to leave them overnight. So far I've kept my coco between 64f-68f inside. Outside this winter its been exposed to 55f at the coolest to 71f at the warmest. However I believe near the wall it should be a little warmer due to radiated heat. Just trying to see if I could get one to survive long term in a cold frame (minimal protection).I believe the mean temp is the key. One day soon it will get too big to stay inside and eventually would outgrow any green house I could buy. Just using my surroundings to my advantage it would be as simple as using a layer or 2 of plastic draped at an angle all the way around and to the ground to enclose a desired location like either a southern or western facing wall. Has the benefits of radiational heat from the wall, the wall itself is a good insulator even though the plastic isn't, has slight canopy, and will act a wind block on windy days. Not only could I modify it later with ease the platic should increase the temps inside especially on sunny days like a green house. It might just be crazy enough to work. If I could find a way to keep the nights a little warmer I might have a shot. Maybe a lot of rocks lol. Heres why I think it might work. I have left this palm out just before Dec started for over a month strait with lows averaging in the low/mid 40f's, even watered several times and it didn't seem to have a problem but probably only due to the fact the highs averaged to about 74-77f. The palm looks good, appears to have slow growth still even indoors/ outdoors with the cool temps in the 60f's, holds onto fronds, no spear pull or anything. I'm assuming if there was root rot there would be visible signs by now in the fronds and over all health of the tree- no drooping yet. Around 60f for the mean temp seems to be the key. So far things look good. maybe I'm not so crazy! lol One day maybe I'll get one to trunk in the ground with some help in winter. - US_Marine

First summer , once a week. This is all new to me . I know people said to water once a week during summer before. I imagine it is the same way now. I have been planting. I have managed to get a couple of holes using the 20" length . They were where I dumped the dirt that I cut into the hill in the building of the house. AND I had dumped the dirt from the digging of the septic where thew house ended up being built. I had clay from the Adobe soil in the front of the property where the septic was transported back to where it is Brackett (limestone/caliche) soil where the house site is. It ended up leveled out in a deep level fill so there was actual dirt above the rock. I dug the 2' x 2' x20" deep hole yesterday and planted the red Oak. I was able to sink the whole pipe in. This Rhamnus carolinians also got aa full 20 ' pipe. I t was just off the edge of the area of fill and under a area of oaks. I just peeked that one out. I was not so lucky with the red bud hole. I cut the pipe down 4" and it still sticks out , so I had to calk some holes in the pipe. I took so much rock out of that hole , I need more dirt. (they were closed today). This whole was impossible. The spot has killed 2 or three trees already. Reb buds are tough. Fingers crossed. The redbud is going in down hill from where the red Oak was planted , NO dirt here . You can see the plastic trash of my watering jugs beyond this tree. What a difference a few feet makes. The silver peso mountain laurel did not get the full pipe deep either. I calked the holes. I will remove the pipes when they are established. I finished out the day getting one of two anacho orchid trees in with a full 20" pipe under a live oak where there was soil. They are a good under story tree. No pictures yet. I have discovered that I can cut 4" off and re duck tape the bottom to shorten the pipes. So now I have a choice when things can not go any deeper.