This is a quote from The Southern Living Gardening Book: "Plants take 2 to 3 years to come into full production but then furnish spears every spring for 10 to 15 years or more. They take up considerable space but do so in a grand manner. Use along a sunny fence or as a background for flowers or vegetables. (You don't have to plant every plant all together. You can scatter them around through ornamental beds and just walk around to harvest.) Set out seedlings or roots (not wilted, no smaller than an adult's hand) in fall or winter. Make trenches 1 ft. wide and 8-10 inches deep. Space them 4 to 6 ft. apart. Heap loose soil enriched with composted manure at bottom of trenches and soak well. Space plants 1 ft. apart, setting them so that tops are 6 to 8 inches below the top of the trench. Spread roots out evenly. Cover with 2 inches of soil and water again. As young plants grow, gradually fill in trench, taking care not to cover growing tips. Soak deeply whenever soil begins to dry out at root depth. Do not harvest spears the first year. The object is to build a big root mass. When plants turn brown in late fall or early winter, cut stems to the ground. The following spring you can cut your first spears; cut only for 4 to 6 weeks or until appearance of thin spears indicates that roots are nearing exhaustion. Then permit plants to grow. Cultivate, feed, and irrigate heavily. The third year you should be able to cut spears for 8 to 10 weeks. Spears are ready to cut when they are 5-8 inches long. Thrust knife down at 45 degree angle to soil; flat cutting may injure adjacent developing spears." "Jersey Knight is the best variety for Southern Growers. Male hybrids typically produce more and larger spears, because they don't put energy into seed production. Such selections still produce an occasional female plant." At my old house, I followed the above instructions and had asparagus there. (I live in East Central MS, about 200 miles inland from the Gulf Coast.) I made a three foot wide raised bed alongside my vegetable garden and planted nothing in it but asparagus. Ever. That is one disadvantage to asparagus and why they are so expensive. You cannot plant anything else in their bed. That soil only produces something edible for 2 to 3 montsh each year. In my youthful ignorance, I bought the typical order of plants, which is 20, and then split them with a friend to save money. Ten plants never produced enough spears at one time to feed my family of four. However, the plants did well, and required very little work except feeding, watering, and giving them a good mulch each year to keep down weeds. If I had space, I would definitely grow them again, but plant AT LEAST 20 roots this time. The Gardening Book says asparagus will grow as far south as the Lower South, which is all the way down except a narrow strip along the coast. Asparagus roots are not that expensive, though you may have to hunt for Jersey Knight. If you want to grow them, do a really good job of preparing the soil and digging the trenches and see what happens. It's not much to lose and you just might succeed!

invest in a load calculation to size the unit to the house. avoiding rule of thumb sizing will allow smaller units, and dehumidification. 500 sq ft per ton is approx what is speced for your home. this will result in oversized units that will short cycling, resulting in higher operating costs & shortened life of equipment. tightness of house, and reducing the duct leakage are also good investments. the average duct system has 25-30% duct leakage. upgrade the insulation package to include foam seal of attic if ducts are placed in attic. there are several guides you can access through LSU Ag Center for building in a hot humid climate. Slemco has a design one brochure you can access online. building science has a builder's guide to hot humid climates also acessable online. use your time wisely to educate yourself as to what makes an efficient house in our climate. where are you building? best of luck.

rmverb....yeah. It was a while ago and surely the costs have gone up since 2007. Still enjoying our pool after all these years....especially as the temps begin to rise this time of year. Hope all the best for your new pool and hang in there during the construction process. cpartist.....yes, the kids are now grown enough that they have impromptu get togethers at the pool with friends. It's relaxing to come home from work and sit by the pool enjoying a cold unit while watching them play.

Digging was completed on Friday evening about 5 minutes prior to a downpour. So we had about a foot of water in the pool and a nice mud pit in the front. The errosion of the walls was a little scary to see... The rebar team came in around 9 on Saturday morning. It was very impressive to watch them bend steel rods and shape the pool based on the drawing. Here are some pictures of the steel: Our PB is Anthony Sylvan. Yep, our home is a Trendmaker. Here are some of the details: 89' Perimter 499 sq ft 3' to 6' depth 10.5' sun shelf 1 skimmer 4 returns 2 color logic led lights 20' of 18" RBB of stacked flagstone with flagstone cap 2 3' sheer descents Riviera Slate coping Stonescapes Mini Tahoe Blue (maybe....) Suction side cleaner 32 sq ft spa 12" raised with flagstone coping 6 jets color logic led light