Aside from some hanging baskets on my porch, I did not put anything in pots this year because of the time spent watering. I had big pots of roses which were killed by this unusually cold winter and did not replace them. I am not adding anything new except to fill in existing beds - just getting to be too much work and not enough fun. I have started adding more evergreens and flowering shrubs to my flower beds to simplify things. I am hoping by really filling the beds full it will choke out some of the weeds. It can get overwhelming with everything else we all have going on in our lives. Oh - and I am also trying to learn to live with "less than perfect".

I have been vegetable gardening since 1980, so that's a long time. About 4 years of that time, I didn't garden. This year was going well, then we just had a groundhog show up to eat my newly planted and growing well, broccoli and the brussels sprouts we were waiting for all season. Lettuce too. So now we are working on what to do about him before next spring rolls around. It's always something. I look forward to winter and I do need that down time. Usually by the time spring comes around, I'm enthusiastic all over again. But if I had a lot of frustration and bad harvests for multiple years, then yes, I'd probably have to ask myself is it worth it? I'd definitely take a whole season off if you feel like you are dreading it. I did that for 3 years, because I had witch grass in my vegetable garden patch and I couldn't cope with it any more and just left it for two years. Then I came up with a new idea of how to deal with it, using plastic to solarize the soil for a full season and that did the trick. The next year, I was really enthusiastic and felt triumphant having solved what seemed like an unsolvable problem. Doesn't hurt to take some time off.

Christina, Different types of seeds are viable for different periods of time. Properly-dried broccoli and cauliflower seeds are generally highly viable for about 5 years whereas carrot seed is generally only highly viable for about three years. The two main enemies of seed viability when storing seeds are high humidity and high temperature. One way to store them is in freezers. They need to be inside airtight containers. All the major seed banks in the world store their seeds in cold storage units. You also can store seeds in foil pouches, paper packets, zip-lock bags (you can get tiny ones in the bead/craft aisle at wal-Mart), plastic lids with tight containers, etc. If not stored in a freezer, they should be stored in a room or closet where they are exposed to fairly constant temperatures. You don't want to store them in an uninsulated garage, garden shed, attic, etc. where they'll be very hot in summer and very cold in winter. If storing them inside, an interior closet or pantry is often a good storage area. If you have a dry cellar or root cellar, it would be an ideal place for seed storage but make sure the seeds are in airtight and roden-proof containers. You also can place packets of silica in your seed containers to absorb moisture and help protect the seeds from excess humidity. Seeds are not good today but then suddenly bad tomorrow. Instead, the seeds lose their vigor slowly over a period of time If your seeds are dried down to 8% moisture content and then sealed into airtight containers and stored in a freezer, they will maintain their normal or typical viability for ten times as long as seeds not stored long-term in a freezer. I don't keep my seeds in the freezer. I just keep them in paper envelopes placed inside zip-lock bags and stored in a plasic storage crate with a locking lid. Most of the time, the storage crate is in my root cellar with my stored veggies and home-preserved food. If you don't have room in the freezer or don't want to store your seeds there, a refrigerator works too. When removing seeds from a freezer or refrigerator so that you can open the container and use some of them, first remove the container from cold storage and let it sit all day long or overnight so the seeds can completely reach room termperature before you open the airtight seed packet. This lessens the likelihood that moisture will condense on the seeds as they thaw which can cause them to germinate prematurely. I generally try to use seeds before they are six years old or older but sometimes you can get seeds that are 6-10 years old to germinate fairly easily, and real seed pros can often germinate older ones. I don't think I've ever tried to germinate seeds older than 8 or 10 years in age. One thing you need to consider with seed packets is that they have to meet federal germination standards because every seed likely will not germinate. The germination rate is expressed as a percentage and varies from variety to variety. For example, the minimal federal germination rate for commercially-sold carrot seed is 55%, so you're unlikely to get 1500 carrots even if you plant 1500 seeds. The worst germination you can expect from fresh seed packed for the current year's use is, therefore, 55% for carrots, although often you'll find a particular batch of seeds has a much higher germinationrate than that---it is just the 55% is the minimum allowed. For cucumbers, the Federal Germination Standard for seed sold commercially is 80%. When planting, you can use the Fenderal Germination Standard for any given variety as an aid in figuring out how many seeds to plant in order to get X number of plants. You also can choose smaller packets of seed. One retailer who specializes in smaller quantities of seed is Pinetree Garden Seeds (www.superseeds.com) and some other seed companies sell 'mini' or 'sampler' packs that contain smaller quantities of seeds. If you collect and save your own seed from open-pollinated varieties, the most important thing is to make sure it has reached the proper degree of dryness before storing it. Otherwise you may end up with moldy, ruint seed. Dawn

kam, here's one thing that I found helpful to think about when we got hit with the unexpected discoveries in the walls: this poor house has needed us to come take care of it. We're contributing to good energy in the world by making it a safe, habitable place for us and for those who come after us. Some houses are treated like throwaways but not ours. We've had to make virtually every single system significantly better in this house, not just update the cosmetics. I honestly feel good knowing that even though we haven't been able to pay someone to take down the *much hated* popcorn in the two-story front room, we don't have toilet drainlines that slant back towards the house anymore. The pretty much completely rewired electrics make sense and aren't about to set the house on fire anymore either. You may also discover that there are less expensive ways to do your most urgent cosmetic updates than you'd thought originally, necessity being the mother of invention and all that...you can bargain shop and jump on c's list items, not just in furniture--check the 'materials' section as well. That section was my best friend during the most heated parts of our multi-year remodeling project. Just one example from among many: we have several hundred square feet of gorgeous clear, high-quality vintage but like-new white oak flooring (had been under carpet in someone's very nice 50s home) in our garage that are awaiting installation and refinishing when we finally rip up the rest of the carpet, that we got for about $1/sf, including delivery. Just got it from the 'materials' section. Stone and tile suppliers also regularly sell remnants/overruns there too, but they go fast. Once you have your design and finishes chosen, you can lie in wait :) Maybe we can put our heads together and help you do some cosmetic improvement brainstorming so you can have that part of your dream realized at least a little, while you take care of the immediate practical needs...?