I too pick out small seed potatoes to plant. If I have no choice, but to get big ones I'll cut them in two pieces. One thing that I learned to do has greatly helped with the potatoes coming up is to presprout the potatoes inside. I take the seed potatoes and put them in a single layer in a shallow box. I put them near a sunny place. Little plants start to grow out of the eyes. No watering is needed because the sprouts will get what they need from the tubers. They'll shrink up a little bit. After 3-4 weeks the sprouted potatoes are hardy enough to be cut in half if need be. I like to plant the potatoes shallowly so the sprouts will be up ASAP to take advantage of photosynthesis. Sometimes crows will pull some of my potatoes up. I just replant a tad deeper and really pack the dirt around the potatoes. As far as planting potatoes again this year, call up a garden center or get ahold of someone from the Sacramento Extension Service. Fresh potatoes taste so great, good luck.

1. For all practical purposes it is too late for potatoes. Seed potatoes have been off the shelf for a couple of months now. You might get a few if you planted some store bought ones but it would be best IMO to pass on the potatoes for this year. In your zone potatoes are normally planted in early spring as soon as the ground can be worked - say late Feb. to early Mar. 2. Also too late for peas. They are an early spring crop and won't tolerate the heat but green beans (pole beans) can be planted on a trellis on one end of your tomato/pepper patch. Whether or not you can plant anything in with the tomatoes and peppers depends on the # of tomato and pepper plants you plant. Tomatoes and peppers get along fine but you don't want to alternate them as the tomatoes will shade the peppers. Using standard spacing in 25 feet you can do 8 or 9 plants (ie: 5 tomatoes and 4 peppers or 6 tomatoes and 3 peppers or 4 tomatoes, 4 peppers and one stand of pole beans, etc.). The pepper and tomato plants will shade out anything you plant in between them so only shade tolerant things would work. Low-growing herbs in front of them would work as long as you can still get to the plants to pick. 3. No way to know if they will get enough sun without seeing the area. Ideal is 8 hours of full sun. Quality and quantity decline as the number of hours of sun falls below 8 hours. Trim whatever you have to to get them as much sun as possible. New gardens are never ideal. Patience is required. They are always an experiment in progress. Problems will develop and you learn from them as you go along. The second and third year is always better and by year #4 you will be on a roll. :) Good luck. Dave

Thanks firsthouse and BakerJen! --Pick wall colors I feel I can't do this until I see the granite (and cabinets) installed with this lighting. We're just going to go with some version of off-white walls. I think someone had the whole house sprayed swiss coffee at some previous point. I'll probably change the tone slightly, but stay pretty basic on wall color. --Make sure all appliances will be on time and have their install instructions/dimensions on hand for the cabinet makers --Have you picked your hood? Range, hood, and fridge ordered. The only thing with a long lead time is the Bluestar 30" RNB in Cobalt Blue. I ordered everything that I knew I was getting from the same local appliance place when I ordered that. W/D (yes, they're in the kitchen) and DW shouldn't take long. I can order them any time. Waiting with baited breath for new Miele's to be released in the US. I realize that they may not be available at the time everything else is installed. I can live with that. It's my understanding that as long as the electrical is set, I can have it installed later. I'll just hang on to my microwave a bit longer. (I'd love confirmation that that's an okay plan.) --Pick your counter. pick your counter edge Granite on hold, will go visit it with fabricator to talk templating and actually buy it. Need to have a meeting of the minds with DH on edge. :/ --Pick your backsplash When we changed granites, we've opted to change backsplash. We were going to go with Heath's Modern Basics because of cost and availability, but when we opted for a less expensive granite of a different color, we decided we needed to go with some of their Classic Field and likely special order. We picked out Frost the other day. Will take it down to the granite and make sure it works. The tile is a 4-week lead time special order. I'm thinking I'd rather wait until the granite is installed to be certain. (And also watch the Heath site for overstock deals...I'd happily run up to Sausalito if something showed up.) I think that's an okay plan. There seem to be no shortage of people who are ABB, so I think that's an okay plan. --Think about your drawer organizers and what will go in each drawer--do you know what will go in each drawer? I'm planning on Wood Hollow organizers, so I'll need to wait until the cabinets are in, I think. The sizes of drawers are so different than what I've got now, I am having a hard time imagining what will go where. Also, currently we just have one U-shaped area that's all cook/clean/prep, so I'm having trouble figuring out what items will end up clumping into those areas. Example: right now there's one 30-ish" wide drawer that holds all regularly used large spoons, spatulas, measuring cups and spoons, wine and bottle openers, potato peeler, etc. I know some of that will migrate over near the range, some will stay by the sink and fridge, some will move to the island, but I don't feel I can make those decisions until I'm working with the new layout. --Where are your electrical outlets Not much is changing there, besides adding the island and getting plugs there. --Do you want a Tapmaster or NeverEmpty? I've got a Delta Touch2O now, and we're opting not to go for one like that again. I think I'll miss it, but we're going to wait and see. I may add a Tapmaster later. I can do that, right? I'm not familiar with NeverEmpty and google wasn't helpful. I'd love to find out what it is to find out if I need/want it. :) --Have you ordered/purchased your garbage disposal Garbage disposal replaced about 6 months ago, so we'll use that. I got a big/nice/quiet one and am happy I did. The GC suggested going to a switch on the counter. I meant to ask here about that. Is that what most people have these days? I've only ever used a wall switch. One of the reasons he may be suggesting it is that the wall the sink is on is masonry and so the switch for the Garbage disposal is on the side wall. One side step away, but still not the most convenient place. Thoughts? --Pick your handles/knobs --Automatic close drawers? All those bells and whistles that you have considered--figure it out now whether it's in your budget and you want them I thought that handles would be the ongoing research project while waiting for cabinets. It turned out that we were just shy of a discount threshold on our cabinets (HD if you spend $X, you get $Y off). So we ordered the handles with the cabinets. Yes, they were more expensive than elsewhere, but they ended up being free this way. AND, it was one less decision to make. It came at a time I was feeling particularly overwhelmed. DH was good with it, so we went for it. Cabinets are Innermost so they come with soft close, full extension, etc. --Flooring? That was the other project this weekend. We recently had LVT installed the LR/DR/halls. Next weekend it's going into a couple of the bedrooms. We'd thought we might run it into the kitchen too, but when we were looking at Maple cabinets, I thought it would be too similar/yet different. It's a light walnut look. I've uploaded it here. Now that we're going with Natural Cherry, and since I've recently seen pics of badgergal's kitchen. I'm thinking it might work well. We did bring home a sample of some stone looking LVT, but I'm thinking it might fight with the granite. binder Great idea! I have papers all shoved in a folder, but that includes about 37 different iterations of the same thing. I should keep that stuff in a folder and file it and start a binder with just the final stuff. I have several notes in Evernote with the electronic stuff, but I should keep a hard copy in a central place. cook ahead This would be good for me to start. Thanks. I'd read that before but it'd gone out of my head. We've got freezer space in the garage freezer that I should aim to fill. :) Thanks for indulging me. I am sure I'm driving everyone around me nuts. And worse yet, people at work are like 'So what's the latest on the kitchen' and I've just had to say 'waiting' recently. So thanks for making me see both that I've BEEN doing stuff, it's just not that exciting to the non-TKO and that there ARE some things that I can be doing now.

I cannot tell from the image if there is discoloration along with the shriveling. To me that would be a likely indicator of rot. Shriveled branches by itself are only a clear indication of a problem. What happens next is the deciding factor if rot sets in. I would treat it like you were attempting to root a fresh cutting and see if it can be saved. cut off all but one or two of the youngest leaves. Dry and warm might make a difference. Use a heat mat if you have one...if not go buy one. Stano's advice to get it out of heavy soil and into a perlite (or similar) mix is seconded. I think you will find a rotted mass of brown roots. The hope will be the rot has not gone past that point. It may be salvageable.