My local garden retail shop publishes a hard copy document that shows what is plantable for each month. And our University extension office has a "Garden Planning" center online with planting dates. You might be able to find one for your zone. I don't have beds, but I have limited space and have to plan ahead and track things, or I go nuts. I am a planner by nature, so I tend to overplan. Being an overplanner, I doubt some of my tips will work for you. But here they are. I use a paint program that uses layers so I can color code. Like this: Not all graphics programs offers layers, but I think Gimp (used to be free, it is open source) does, and Adobe Elements, an abbreviated but very capable version of Adobe Photoshop does, and you should be able to buy for under $50. Here is the key I use to keep track of things: The blue shaded areas are planted, those with a blue check were recently seeded and need to be watered daily. The bright pink S indicates I have started seed inside and will transplant later. The yellow-orange areas mark what I need to plant next, probably at the next opportunity. The pink areas need to be planted, but are not targeted for anything yet - still open. Using this little chart makes it really easy to plant in as small as 30 minutes chunks of time, which is all I have most of the time. As far as what to plant, you need to make decisions based on what will grow in your area. I am in 8b, but on the east coast, or I would gladly share. But I don't want to mislead you. Hang in there. I am only at it three years too, and I have much to learn. It helps to be an optimist - I harvested 14 pounds of tomatoes tonight, but I also have 7 dying squash plants. I look for the unexpected surprise sometimes. The gardener provides the framework, and sometimes needs to stand back and be a witness. So much is not up to us. The surprises are what amaze me the most. This morning I found another volunteer tomato, the third one. The first one is a gem. It probably is a Sungold descendent - it is dwarf and fully loaded with little tiny tomatoes. The Black Beauty Eggplant I bought is really a Fairy Tale and it does not care about this hot weather. We are having straight 95 degree days already, the peppers are shut down, the tomatoes look stressed, but here is this little dwarf eggplant setting fruit like nobodies business.

I live in the South, long hot growing seasons, lots of humidity. My brugs are all planted in the ground. I have several that look like your first picture and several that look nothing like it. I have had cuttings from the SAME plant grow 10'tall in a couple of months and another cutting that began to grow horizontal and never get over 5' tall. Same mother plant, same planting time, same everything. Mine bloom best after it rains. In the middle of summer, like now, they often have very, very few leaves and no blooms. Then it rains. Hot and humid and covered with blooms. One, an unknown white, had about 300 blooms on it from about March to June. It now has about 3 leaves on it & nothing else. We have very alkaline soil and our water is very alkaline. My "soil" is really little more than sand to tell the truth. And I'm notoriously bad at fertilizing anything. And forget treating for bugs! I never prune anything unless it's in my way either. I've had at least 5 flushes of blooms this year, all equally beautiful & expect them to all bloom again once it cools off a bit. Our heat index was 115 yesterday & it was 99 at 0530 this morning. Tally HO!

I went out and ran errands most of the day after I did the harvesting early this morning, and then came home and canned. While canning, I logged on and looked at the QPF and saw the rain had shifted north, Scott, and I was happy for you. It was unlikely it would expand and catch both of us, so if it wasn't going to hit us here, then at least it seems likely to hit y'all there. Enjoy every drop that falls. Y'all don't have to worry about me. We'll be fine. We've had worse years than this one. For as dry as it has been overall, at least the majority of this year's rainfall here has fallen in June and July. That's actually better than if it had mostly fallen back in February and March and then very little since then. I just get tired of having to irrigate all the time when folks 100 miles north are flooding. It makes me want to stomp my foot like a 4-year-old and proclaim "It's not fair!" I also can think of more fun ways to spend money than sending it to the water company. (grin) I thought the grass in the yard looked a little greener this morning after I had watered it on Sunday, and then Tim mowed while I was canning pickles, and now the lawn is brown again. We did get rain here yesterday and a little this morning. It added up to 0.15". We'll try to make that bountiful amount of rain last as long as possible before we feel compelled to water the garden again. : ) Looking on the bright side of things, when only 0.15" of rain falls, you don't have to deal with muddy feet and muddy paws because there is no mud. Helen, Well, it all depends. Are they big drops or small drops? Kim, It is about time y'all have a good rainy summer. You haven't had one up there in so long. It probably is just as well that we aren't going to get heavy rainfall. I'm harvesting watermelons about every other day and if it rains too much once they are maturing, it can ruin their flavor. So, I suppose this week it is good not to have too much rain for the sake of the melon flavor. August melons usually have the most superb flavor because they ripen in the heat on low rainfall, so in that sense, we are right on schedule. As long as the cool weather lasts, we'll enjoy that whether we get a little rain, a lot of rain, or no rain at all. At least with the significantly cooler weather and lots of clouds, the soil moisture we have isn't evaporating as quickly as it was on the really hot days last week and over the weekend. Since it isn't likely to be raining much here tomorrow, I'd like to spend the whole day doing garden maintenance. It isn't every year you get a day in July so cool that you can happily spend the whole day weeding, deadheading, mulching, etc. I'm looking forward to that. Kim, I have a Mantis cultivator. It is the perfect size for me and I can do just about anything with it. I am amazed at how well it works on dense, compacted clay---as long as that clay has some moisture in it. The Mantis is no match for clay that is dry and has baked as hard as concrete, but it is great in clay with a little moisture. In the small areas of sandy soil that we have, it is awesome, and it works fine in the well-amended clay that we've been improving for 16 years now---cuts right through that amended clay like a knife cuts through butter. I don't know how it would handle caliche clay/rocks because I've never tried it on that. Sometimes my Mantis and I together can break up fairly hard clay better than Tim can do it with the big, heavy, rear-tine tiller, which is something I didn't expect. It seems like the Mantis digs in and bites into the soil with its smaller width while the bigger tiller is bouncing around on top of the clay and throwing Tim around with it. I love my Mantis and if it ever dies or breaks down to the point that it is beyond repair (in 5 years we've had no trouble at all with it), I'd buy another one in a heartbeat. Dawn

I'm finding myself agreeing with the others. A man who is emotionally immature at 43 is likely to be emotionally immature at 53, at 63, at 73... You were rebounding, understandably, and this man met your rebound needs for a while. Accept that this relationship was something you needed for a few months, but that it may not have the solid foundation necessary to build a real and lasting future on. Measure the relationship in terms of quality, not duration. You could "hang in there" forever just to prove to yourself that you're not a failure at relationships; or, you can move on, with the mindset that a dysfunctional relationship is NOT better than no relationship, and that it's a mark of self-respect to act on that. If his own relationship with his kids is not the best, then HE needs to get in there and fix it. And IMO, with absolutely no disrespect intended, having a third party there in the middle (you) is a hinderance to getting that done, and the kids will very reasonably blame and resent you for being there in the middle. By letting you 'deal' with his kids, he doesn't have to. If I've been overly negative about the relationship, then of course, don't end it altogether. But IMO, it still makes sense to call of the engagement for the indefinite future, move out and re-establish your own independence. Take things gradually, and see where they head on their own. At the eight-month mark, with the right guy, you should be walking on air, not struggling for breath. Good Luck --