Hi neohippie, I think you visited one of my threads with photos of my raised beds. I'm not sure which one, but you can look at the attached link to get an idea of what I'm talking about. I just got back into gardening last year. The wife and I had spent a few summers in Colorado escaping the Texas heat. We decided to stay home last summer and our daughter said she wanted me to start growing some of those great tomatoes I used to grow. For years as we moved around, I was a sometimes container gardener and a sometimes raised bed gardener. I went back to raised bed gardening because it is so easy to get a crop in the ground without a lot of soil prep. and without a lot of highly technical know how. I live about sixty miles north of Dallas. We have a hard red clay soil base. I put my first two beds in at the end of a draught last year. The ground was so hard that we couldn't even drill into the clay with a large tractor mounted drill. I built the first two beds in less than a day, added dirt mixed with composted manure, sphagnum peat moss, sand (for looseness) and some commercial 10-10-10 fertilizer. I didn't do anything to the base soil other than turn it over with a shovel and pick to mix in the new dirt. I filled the new beds almost to the top knowing that it would settle a lot. I planted my plants the next day. My family and friends enjoyed tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash all summer. I don't know what part of Central Texas you live in, but in North Texas; we do have a spring and fall growing season. My garden just hangs on without dieing during the hottest part of the summer and then recovers at summers end and produces until the first frost. I think they have to replant for the fall season in the Houston area because the heat and humidity is so intense. I think you can at least get a fall crop planted if you want to. Yours will probably grow almost to the New Year. Good Luck Ted Here is a link that might be useful: My raised beds

Catherine, I saw this poem and thought of you. A Light Lost You were frightened, but you wanted to love. You distrusted, but there were moments when - almost - you would rest your head. You were always on guard, but you dreamed of learning to play. You knew no one would protect you, but there were thoughts, or memories, of having a friend. And we wanted to rescue you, to let you know you were safe. If we had stroked your lovely coat just one more time..... If we had run with you just a little faster, or more often, in the grass..... Then maybe you would have been able to believe. We will never know if we failed you, or if life had failed you too harshly before we met. We will not know if you heard us and couldn't answer, or if you had lost the power to hear before we spoke. We cannot know if you will forgive and wait for us at the Bridge, But we know that we will look for you. You, also, are one of ours -- and we loved you as best we could. by Elizabeth Sommers Glenda

I have no problem with taking bulbs from abandoned homesteads (or even empty houses) as long as you don't take so many as to destroy the beds...or from along the road or vacant fields. Again as long as you don't create a mess...but I am superstitous about cemetaries...I dont' believe in ghosts but I am not studyin' encouraging anyone to come lookin' for something if ya know what I mean..but thats me! and since I finally have my own home, I fully intend to spend some time this spring cruising the back roads here in East Texas looking for pretty things for my yard!

Sue, the Etap hotel is a few steps below a motel 6...quite a few steps in fact. LOL! The rooms were tiny, which were expected but the floor was really grungy and the toilet/shower area were a one piece porta potty plastic unit that had been put into a corner of the room. It was very small and the floor area by the toilet got soaked when you showered. The shower stall area was barely big enough to turn around in. Now I wish I had taken a picture! Patti, I think the house I used to live in was torn down and a new one put in it's place, there were a lot of new homes there. The town was very small, just one street with one tiny restaurant and a coffin maker. That was it...not even a post office. Stacy, yeah, I think I should've learned after our trip out west. Some of it was fun but for the most part they weren't interested in a lot of it. I've downloaded my pictures and will start posting them. Wish I had taken more videos, they are pretty funny because they are so BAD! LOL!