Thanks saltcedar...Chenopodium... Hmm.. That is possible. I had put some spinach to grow last year and these might be mixed up in there with the spinach seeds. They are a delicacy in India and are called 'bathua'. The leaves look similar but never knew that they grow almost 4ft tall. Still dont know if I have the nerve to cook them and try!!

Your cabbage and artichoke plants look positively wonderful, Xuan! They must love the humidity! I can hardly believe the cabbage is forming heads already! My veggie seeds, besides the radishes, haven't even made an appearance yet! We've gotten plenty of rain, but the raised beds dry out faster than the ground, what with all the wind we've gotten lately... they needed to be watered yesterday, for the first time this season. Due to the different soil types in different garden areas, some beds are still a bit muddy while others are beginning to dry out a bit... we have heavy clay soil in some areas, and others have been amended with compost, peat, topsoil and sand. A few areas are rather gravelly, as well, and I'm constantly picking out small stones and pebbles. The other raised beds by the barn were filled with a combination of topsoil and rotted horse manure... by next year, that soil should have broken down even more and become quite beautiful! I should still add some sand to the beds... maybe some peat, too. When I hear about overly dry conditions and wildfires raging, it's usually in California... I normally think of Florida as being humid and wet! It must be difficult to find edibles to grow that can take both wet and dry extremes... Mulberries sound delicious! When I was a kid, we had a good sized mulberry tree in our yard... we would pick tons of berries and enjoy them with cereal in the mornings! I've got Tithonia "Torch" seeds planted... I can't wait to see the flowers! Your bouquets of them always look so pretty, Cindee! And you're so right... fresh picked home grown fruits and vegetables taste so much better than anything you can buy at the larger grocery stores... most of the commercially grown food, unless it's organic, is rather tasteless! Especially the tomatoes! I look forward every year to harvesting fresh pea pods and green beans, tomatoes and bell peppers, and all the other delicious things we plant! This year, Larry is going to make pickles! Yummy!

All sounds a bit overdone to me; have you considered hydroponics? ie. a completely artificial, automatic, setup. with my 'in-ground' vegie patch I just follow Peter Cundall's guidelines: I dig over my vegie patch each autumn/ winter, blend in some complete fertilizer: blood and bone, some dolomite lime, Sheep manure, a touch of cow manure if I have it, some well prepared compost material - a touch of boron if I'm planting beetroot, and all my vegies (tomatoes, beans, lettuce, etc.), thrive. Rotated according to Pete's advice from the previous years crops of course. B.

not sure why they are in one place and not another, don't think broccoli controls the ground it grows in. we mulch heavily so have little weed issues. len Here is a link that might be useful: lens bale garden