I agree with many of the statements made here. We also eat from the garden and when in season. Lucky for us, the seasons here are long! We simply plan our meals around what the garden produces! I think this really simplifies life. Lettuces grace our table from December to June, tomatoes from July to December, cole crops are good from November until June. In the winter we eat peas and favas, in the spring runner beans, in the summer common beans, in the fall sometimes cow peas, sometimes limas. Carrots produce every month (but they are less tasty in the summer), beets most of the year, chard all the time. We grow all the herbs we use, but only have basil in the summer and cilantro in the winter. Fruit is great, and even better now that we started growing strawberries. Our fruit production goes like this: December to May too much citrus! strawberries are producing most of the time, peaches in mid summer if the squirrels let us have some, figs in August and September, then some of the neighbor's grapes. We do buy some tropical fruit from time to time, bananas, mangos, papaya, we can't grow those too well. I also eat a lot of my preserved (dried) figs troughout the year. So I think we produce 90% of the fruit and veggies we eat. We produce some potatoes, but need to buy some for part of the year. Same with onions. Garlic was a bust, must do something about it. We grew corn a couple of years, no more. We are using the space to grow artichokes, better return on the investment! So we buy corn a couple of times a year. As far as other grains, I have tried growing amaranth for grain. No fun to harvest, but I like it as greens in the summer!

Well, I haven't ever computed mine on the lot lines. But just added up the size of the yards around the house and added them up. So mine is 8000 not counting house, drive way, and four sidewalks and two patios. I'd love to have a big tooth oak. I hear they are nice trees and have nice fall color. I planted two trees that were supposed to be shantung maples, but, they turned out to be mis-labled Norway maples and simply did not do well in my climate (plus their fall color was bad instead of the nice color I hear Shantungs generally have.) My three red oaks are all slightly different. I think one might be a Mexican or white oak, I just haven't ever been able to tell for sure. And, alas, with too much shade (go figure) I've killed 3 crepe myrtles. I really wanted a couple of those. Three lilacs are surviving but not flourishing for the same reason. They only get about a half day because I was finally able to get my Pin oak to take off. Also, in a few years I expect one of my burr oaks and one of my red oaks to conspire with a neighbors pecan tree to make my Cleveland pear to feel crowded. But, up here our trees generally grow smaller (even the "big" ones) and slower. So, its much different than in tree growing areas where many of the trees I have will get HUGE and do so fairly quickly. Our weather often thins out our trees for us.

My husband was in michigan this week and that was one of the flights he thought about taking on thursday night. He flies a lot and it just hit close to home. Clarence is not far from where we live. We are a little more out in the country. Big sigh of relief. When the news came on at 10pm they announced at the end of the broadcast that a plane had crashed by the airport, but they didn't know anything yet. By the time the 11pm news came on, it was not until after the weather that their news crews made it to the neighborhood and they announced it was a commercial plane. WIVB broadcast without commercial break until I went to bed at 2am. When my husband called to say he was alright i was so grateful. (wipes tears and sniffles) Fran, Could i have the blanket flower, please? BTW, DS#3 watered my keyboard once, its still a little iffy. We set it in from of the blower on the woodstove for a week. Just FYI those of you sowing in the keys LOL! Thank all of you for the prayers. Families here are esp. close knit and things like this are difficult for anyone. Praying for your FIL, too Nichol. Fleethart

I usually harvested my Golden Spice about the third week of September here in our short-season mountain valley in western Montana. When a lot of them began falling off the tree, I knew they were ready. Of course, they may be ready sooner where you are at. I put them in a cool, dark room and let them ripen up a bit more (wouldn't have had enough room in the fridge). Then I would test by just eating one-- though the skin has a bit of a bitter taste, when they are ripe, the meat has a wonderful sweet, and some would say sort of spicy, taste. I used most of mine in a juice blend with apples. Sadly, after 25 years, between fireblight and severe winter injury (problems I hadn't had before), my beautiful large Golden Spice tree was devastated. I cut out a lot of dead and infected branches, and am hoping it will bounce back, but right now, it is just a pathetic-looking shell of its former self. No pears this year. :(