silversword: Great growing! Rhubarb takes at least a year to settle in before you can harvest enough for baking or canning. In my area it's usually available only in spring, but I've seen it at fall garden swaps. You might want to find out if there are any free swaps in your area. Perennial or nearly so for me are: Swiss chard & Red Russian Kale: self sows, but will cross with other brassicas, so be aware of that if others go to seed, too. Transplants pretty easily while young. When it self sows it creates a carpet that is easy to harvest with shears or scissors. Wash, cut ever so small & throw it in any entree for almost invisible vegetables. I have good results with chives as edging & now have 20 or more plants out there, so can harvest all I want for dips, salads, & egg dishes from March - frost kills in late October or November some years. If I pot one up & keep on front porch and it's a mild year I can have chives on New Year's yet. All depends... About climbers (all are annuals for me, none perennial for vegetables): The most interesting was 2 years ago...green pole beans interplanted with morning glory vine & cucumbers. It was fun to watch them grow & I loved the 10' height the morning glory carried the combination to, but it was difficult to pick cucumbers. Fortunately, they hung downward again by the time they were ripe. Lots of comments when I plnat runner bean with pole beans around a wooden ladder, with lettuces grown in the middle & shaded by the beans. Tried pots on the steps, but it's not worth it with the small pots that fit on there. Easiest is probably bamboo teepees or iron obelisks planted with peas in spring then beans in summer. Most functional was when I reused an old 15' piece of welded wire fencing with 2" x 4" openings on 3 T-posts on a slightly sloped area of the garden where the grade dropped a bit then sloped down to the driveway. I kept that in place for about 6 years I think growing all sorts of things on one side or the other while getting that soil in better shape. Peas, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, various flowers, onions, etc. Two trap crops that work well without too much hassle: Dahlias: slugs will prefer those over your cucumbers & zucchini starts & the spring started bedding dahlias aren't much $ & don't take much space. Some years I could get dahlia growing big enough to survive the slugs & other years one plant or another just never had a chance. This is with putting out sluggo bait. It was nice to have missing dahlias rather than my veg. plants. Nasturtiums attract the black aphids & keep off your vegetables. If I don't plant nasturtiums the aphids will find my vegs & then I have to bother with spraying them off damaging flowers & reducing fruits. Even grew tomatoes, nasturtiums, & onions in old straw bales on the upper side. Took a lot more watering to keep the bales moist enough for the tomatoes + had to build high bamboo teepee & crosspieces structure for them. In 2nd year tomatoes got late blight, so 2 years in the bales didn't work. What did work well was the improvement to the soil underneath where the worms did all the work for me. Last year's upper garden area with tomatoes planted in remains of straw bales on left & zucchini with deer nibbled raspberries on right as well as pear & cherry trees. Most visible is the nasturtium blooms & the garden path of burlap, so not the loveliest photo, but shows a garden in growth. Since pics explain better than words I'll include 2 pics of our garden last year. The front of the garden where the concrete blocks meet the driveway & blooming chives are visible. Just behind the chives are 2 rows of everbearing strawberries, but you can't see them at this angle. Tomatoes & zucchini on the left. Bare soil & straw piled up from potato harvest. Clay pots in background contain herbs. Dangling balloon was to scare off the deer & rabbits, but it only works marginally.

This is one of my all time favorite threads. lax, your husband is a lucky guy (and I will *not* be reading this thread aloud to my husband, haha) morgne, your post was hilarious -- classic statement on marriage (nearly every marriage): "I love the little booger. Too bad I also want to kill him." Everytime I think about it I start laughing again. Thanks! Crafty, I, too, am glad things are looking up. :-) Hang in there.

Scarlett, I had a c-section with my 3rd baby so while I was opened up they did the tubal ligation. There is actually something like a 3 percent failure rate on tubals, and before surgery you sign a release form releasing the doctor from responsibility if you would get pregnant and that you understand that there is a risk of pregnancy. Well today was the day that things really hit me and got to me. My mom was up and told me that my family is concerned about how DH treats me and how I do everything as far as the kids, house, and family are concerned with out much help. When I do get some help it is like we should have a party lol. I told DH I was fed up and physically exhausted and was a step away from calling our minister. Well I did call him and he came over and we talked for some time over the things that were happening, he even had my mom go out and talked to her about things. DH is going to be gone through Sunday but I am hoping that he will go and talk to Mel the minister sometime next week. The things that he doesn't understand are: The physical effects of pregnancy and breast feeding. Over the past 6 years except for 5 months I have either had a baby in my belly or at the boob. I am physically wore out. Hayden was only 5 months old when I got pregnant and Dr. was the one to recommend the tubal because my body had a hard enough time with the last pregnancy that she didn't know how I could handle another pregnancy, surprise baby comes in November. The effect of his actions and reactions on our kids as far as his spending time with them and yelling at me and our arguements. That even though I am a sahm I don't have to to everything for him, that he can help too. And that being a sahm is a job, and one that I work hard at. That because of my health, mentally, physically and emotionally, he needs to step up. I will keep everyone posted. He is at a conference all day tomorrow and leaves Thursday for Sturgis bike rally with his younger brother. So will be home alone with 3 kids for 5 days, will be tough. I think that they might go down to my sisters this weekend, and I might have the weekend to myself. Except for an hour this morning when I went to town to the pharmacy and grocery store, I haven't had a free minute with out one kid or another or all for months and I need a break. I will keep in touch and let everyone know how things are going. I am at the point where it is touch and go and I am just about ready to go. Stacie girlsingardens

I clean the house thoroughly when he's gone so I get a clean house to live in for a few days ;D I throw out empty boxes he collects, sometimes rearrange the furniture. Dig out his handkerchiefs from wherever he's stashed them, and toss them in the laundry, then finish off the laundry (somehow with him around, the hamper is never empty). Sort tons of socks into pairs. I clean and re-arrange his wardrobe. Once all that's done, I clean the microwave like a maniac to get the smell of popcorn out (he eats popcorn everyday!). I fish out the remote controls from under the sofa, watch TV, listen to the radio - at a volume appropriate for someone who's not deaf. Watch the Lion King, Bambi, The Seabiscuit and cry all I want. Eat what I want, when I want, where I want (not in front of the TV). I sleep soundly (nobody snoring/talking in his sleep beside me) and wake up refreshed bcoz there isn't that irritating alarm to jolt me awake. I laze around a lot. I have long conversations with friends and family on the phone. I buy only useful things when I go shopping. And I keep a good hot meal ready and make sure I look very, very busy doing chores around the house when he returns.