Some of the jujube I planted last year bloomed and bore fruit immediately. Sugar Cane was my favorite of those. Pomegranates do love hot dry conditions. I'm not sure they'd bear the first year but probably the second. They grow early maturing grapes in the Coachella valley of CA. That's at least as hot as Phoenix. If you get a lot of growth the first year a reasonable harvest begins the second year. Here is a link that might be useful: Coachella valley table grapes

You might want to check out growing cacti commercially in israel. Their water situation is similar to ours and they're producing tons of fruit in the desert there, prickly pear and cereus peruvianus (sp?). The cereus looks like ones I see all over my neighborhood loaded with fruit that isn't used and that's a shame if it's as good as touted. http://www.localharvest.org/cereus-peruvianus-kubo-apple-cactus-C11497 http://video.answers.com/commercial-cultivation-of-the-cactus-plant-506875420 Here is a link that might be useful: Local Harvest

Maisie - Defrost's squash pictures are amazing. I'm always wishing I had a bigger sunnier spot. [g] This year, seed starting is about the fun of gardening in the offiseason for me too, but selection and timing are often the reasons I will try to do it. I like to get my plants in the ground earlier than I can find them available and I usually want varieties that I don't always find. I'm out in the garden in March if possible and still out in the garden in November, so I'm usually ready for a break from gardening during the off season. Last year I didn't do as much gardening, so I'm itching to do some this year. Indoor seed starting does take a lot of attention and I found I refined it from year to year. I haven't actually done it in awhile, so I hope I can get it right this year. One big key for me, was adding a fan. That made a lot of difference. And I try not to start them too early. It's tempting to try to end up with huge plants to put in the ground, but even a 6 week old plant is 6 weeks ahead and ready to start growing as soon as it hits the ground. Ending up with too many….lol….doesn't everyone do that?! I found my old 48" shop lights and bulbs and nothing is working, so I'm going to have to replace everything. And what is available is different then it was. I have the old T12 fixtures and I see now they have T8s and T5s. I wonder what everyone else is using?

Thanks all for your inputs. That is encouraging to hear about Macoun and King David varieties, as I've never had one, but they sounded like quality apples. My apple palate isn't as refined as most folks, I guess my favorite over the years has been Gold Delicious. I prefer apples to be firm, tart and have some sweetness to balance that acid. We picked a bag of Macs up at the local Kroger, and I thought they were pretty good, with all those attributes. To be honest, other than store bought Macs, I don't know how they'd compare to fresh off the tree. But, I would venture to say a store version is prob a poor to fair representation of what a fresh apple would taste like. I'm sure it's not like that all the time, but I would guess most of the time. I spent almost 30 years in Texas, and you just don't get fresh apples there like you do in more northern areas. Peaches, pecans, yes, apples, not so much. So, I had to rely on store bought. Three of my selections are Mac offspring, so I think those ought to be good apples for us. Especially the Macoun, I've heard and read many good reviews of it. A lot of my tree selections, to be honest, were based on what other folks had written about them. A lot of my decisions were based on the orangepippintrees website, and their descriptions, and I wanted trees that had average to good disease resistance. Grimes are popular in these parts, so I got a couple of those, since it's also a Golden Del parent. But, our trees are still just whips with some leaves and a few small branches, so we'll have to wait at least a couple of years before we can sample any of them. All of them are about 50% of standard or smaller, so I'd think we ought to get some fruit in at least three years. So, until then, we'll have to settle for some local orchards to provide us with what we want. There is an orchard within an hour of us over near Paris, KY, called Reed Valley, that is growing 8 of the same apple varieties we are, and both peach varieties we have. So, I'm excited to check them out later this year. Plus, there's tons of orchards up in Ohio that I'd like to visit as well. Right now, my biggest concern is keeping the varmits, mostly deer, off my saplings. I have them all protected with circular fencing, so that should keep them at bay for now, but I'm going to have to beef that up when the trees start growing up over their protection. At least this will keep them off the lower parts, and since the fencing has 2*4 inch spacing, it ought to keep out the rabbits. But, our next chore is to get our 70 tomato and 20 pepper plants in the ground soon. It's been so cold and rainy this month, it's put that part of our gardening way behind schedule. We've already got corn and potatoes growing, though.