In my experience, anything that reduces the leaves, and particularly the spur leaves, access to photosynthesis can lead to a crop reduction or failure. I've discussed this with a commercial grower and he believes a cool wet spring even following flowering reduces fruit set for this reason. I believe energy stored towards the end and produced at the start of the season may have most affect on fruit set. We had a late summer monsoon here season before last and apple set was somewhat light although leaves did not defoliate on fruit trees. More surprising was that for the first time in memory the oaks had very few oak nuts (I refuse to call them acorns) for two consecutive seasons. It's making the wildlife absolutely frenzied for food this year to the point where they are shaking bait out of bait stations (never happened before). Normally oak nut harvest is reliably bienniel.

Absolutely investigate square food gardening methods and raised beds. Caution: the spring planting dates in most garden books are a bit late for us folks in the super heat. Florence is Pinal County isn't it? The best garden "book" for Arizona is the internet. You can find the U of A extension service Master Garden Manual on the web. With all the cotton and dairy farming in your neighborhood, there have got to be folks around with lots of gardening experience. Any organic gardening clubs around? Hint: Hit Walmart, Home Depot and your favorite nurseries for your seed and bedding plants. It's a bit late for catalog ordering. Plant short seasoned varieties of most veggies. Most places will have their tomato and pepper plants in mid March. Start small and have fun.

Good luck with getting some rain. We have had a lot lately. Came close to having snow, but it just missed us. Everything here is wet, muddy and soggy. A couple of days of sun and we'll be back to normal. Good luck with your garden. Post pictures so we can see your work. Brenda South LA Here is a link that might be useful: http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/575578430PXcgMP

Thank you all for the comments. Glad your enjoying the pics. I'd rather see blooms than the white stuff on the ground. COTTAGE CANDY is a keeper. VICTORIAN LACE survived but its bloom is butt ugly and doesn't even look like VL. It tried to open yesterday and seems to be hung up. I went back here on the forum and looked at posters photos and sure doesn't have the same coloring. I'm not sure if its a weather thing or the wrong plant. Time will tell. Kathy: Yes, the picture quality is just as good inside as out. I use a Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT with a telephoto lens that has IS. I haven't ever taken the lens off and put back the original lens back on since I started using it. I think I will try it just to see what the difference in picture quality would be outside. I love this camera even if it is heavier than the Canon Powershot SD800 IS, which I also have. Vickie: I reset the camera so that if the CF card is not in the camera it will display a message. But you are right...I did get to go back out and visit the garden again ;-). As a tip, if you want to know what camera someone is using for their pictures,settings, etc, you can click on the photo and typically it will take you to the posters album photo in whatever web hosting site they are using. You will see on the right side "Photo Info" which you click on the little arrow next to it (Photobucket) or it will open with all the Photo Info listed (Picasa). Also know that if you haven't marked your albums as "Private" anyone can access all your photo albums, if that matters to you. Julia