My first year of gardening was in my mid teens (I was given a fairly sheltered life and still prefer it). I had made two 2Âx4Â raised beds 12" high, filled them with topsoil harvested from an out of the way location (on the property) and a few bags of store-bought manure. My parentÂs place happened to be where a full grown bodybuilder would be lucky to get the tip of a shovel 3" into undisturbed ground , so the filling of the beds was an ordeal. I planted each of the beds with 3 rows of red bush beans (I donÂt know why anymore, I was just a kid). I watered and waited, watered again the next day, and again the next. Then at one strange moment the next day I looked upon my creation and just happened to notice the five 18" tall tomato plants growing in each of the beds! You might think that at this point I was very excited about having plants in the garden, or that one of my parents was being nice, making sure that their child had a successful first garden - I tell you now that this was NOT the case! First, I was 15ish - not 5ish! - I knew there were differences between plants and had a bit of a grasp on the concept of time. There is no second point, but what I tell you now is that I had awoken a sleeping gardener who had coveted my land and claimed it as her own (sure she is my Ma and technically maybe it could have possibly been her own, but anyway). I listened to her excuses and cleverly concealed my rage eventually salvaging a bit of a "crop" from my remaining shaded/stunted red beans. Long story short - The next year I grew a 98 lb. pumpkin(who knows why? I was just a kid) - I was aiming for a 100+ but oh well ( IÂm still waiting for the "Pacific Giant" pumpkin) Oh, and I also had probably about 10 Roma tomato plants... :) Many years have passed... I have a garden at my own place now but continue to garden with Ma in the same spot (that has expanded quite a bit). It has been rewarding beyond words (even though the scars from that first year have left me a bitter, bitter husk of a person.) Pep talk time: Get back out there and garden! The fall crops of many vegetables are said to be better than the spring crop - especially root crops. The link below seems to be a good one for your state - it is from an interesting college called Purdue (where it seems that they are famous for making train parts in addition to gardening calendars). Check out Table 2. Too bad that you donÂt have a piece of ground that you could garden regularly for a while - IMO the ground improves quite a bit during the first few years. Maybe you could make raised beds and take the soil with you ? - I read somewhere that this was a French tradition. Best of luck to you! Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/hort/ext/Pubs/ho/HO_186.pdf

I grew oodles of corns in 2008 and 2009, and actually just ground it all up in October and November -- it sat in the basement in storage for all that time. I ended up with over a hundred pounds of corn meal, of various colors. I tried flour corns (actually, my favorite in terms of ease of grinding), dent corns (most productive), flint corns (not for grinding again, too hard! but pretty for decorative use), and even waxy corn (via someone in North Carolina who got seeds from China). I think my single most productive variety was Northstine Dent --- its a northern Michigan heirloom with fairly short plants (5-6 feet), and about 7 inch ears with yellow kernels. Hopi Blue Dent was probably the most productive blue. Earthtones Dent and Oaxacan Green were both productive, but the cornmeal is kind of ugly, yielding a strangely colored cornbread (kind of looks like dryer lint, but tastes fine). Painted Mountain was just OK in terms of production, IMO. Alas, my dry corn crop this year was an abject failure. The stupid squirrels striped every ear of my dry corns, from several hundred feet of row. There was NO walnut or acorn crop here, and I guess they were desperate for food, but partially my fault because I got lazy and was NOT good about getting them trapped, I just had too many other things to do. It did serve one purpose, they stayed out of my sweet corn and went for the dry corn varieties in the other garden closer to the trees. Hopefully next year will be better.

I'd have to say first off that you surely seem to have more successes than failures. The garden looks lush and happy. Sorry to hear about the beans. Just curious why you didn't put them in the ground to begin with? Why the containers? My failure has definitely been peppers. The hots are OK, but the green, red, and yellow have all rotted before being picked. I guess it's blossom end rot. I've gotten rid of it on the tomatoes, but no luck yet with peppers. And I've had a blast now that I have GOOD tomatoes. I'd never grown any of the heirloom varieties before, just the better boys, and am loving having the different tastes. Brandywine, cherokee purple, and others. Funny story -- my wife NEVER goes near the garden, but with my daughter the other day went out and picked all the ripe tomatoes, but didn't keep track of which was which. I'm still working on that myself, so suddenly I was left with a bunch of good, but unidentifable tomatoes. I wasn't amused. At least it was better than the last time she helped ... she went out in the fall in pulled out all the dead flowers ... perennials all. Of course ... it's half the fun, isn't it ... figuring out what you did right and wrong, and what we can do better next year. And sharing like this makes it even better. What are you planting for the fall? Happy gardening David

I agree, too much water and too little chicken. I just keep "saving" carcasses, wing tips, etc. in a freezer bag until I get a bunch, then dump into my Nesco roaster with some onions, parsley, salt and pepper, celery, usually carrots. Simmer on low for at least 12 hours, usually closer to 18 and it's far better than any canned broth I've tried. I usually refrigerate it overnight so I can skim off the layer of fat, and the stuff is like chicken jello, it really does gel, like this: I don't use any of the "soup bases" as I find them salty and fake tasting. The Better than Bouillion is better than many, but it's not nearly as good as homemade, at least not to my taste. A quick check shows these ingredients in Better than Bouillion, Chicken Base: "Chicken Meat including Natural Chicken Juices, Salt, Sugar, Corn Syrup Solids, Chicken Fat, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Dried Whey (Milk), Flavoring, Disodium Inosinate and Guanylate, Turmeric. Contains: Soybean, Milk." Both sugar AND corn syrup? Why does chicken broth need to be that sweet, I wonder? Also 680 mg of sodium per TEASPOON, 28% of the daily value. Annie