austinnhanasmom, you can double the garden by growing tomatoes and peppers, even cucumbers up side down. If you can imagine a clothes line installed with a pipe instead of a rope... and then hang your plants above other plants. One of the best thing about upside down plants, you pretty much have no worries about slugs... and all the veggies are off the ground, no brown sides on the cukes! AND no tomato cages or support for the cukes! No worries about ammending the soil for new garden either, you won't take up half your lawn either... Here is a link that might be useful: upside down tomato

Mine arrived in about the same condition as stage_rat's. I don't remember last year if they were in such tough shape. I'm not concerned; a yarrow will come back from the dead even if it were COMPLETELY dead. The dianthus was pretty tired; hostas were totally fine (Beam me up, Scotty- I got Captain Kirk and Frances Williams); the shastas were fine...the Campanula was also tired, but it'll live, I'm sure. Joe Pye! I forgot about that one; I ordered the short one; the name escapes me at the moment. Oh, and some heuchera- those were mostly fine, but still tired. I wonder if ordering earlier in the season...are the plants looking better? I've never ordered from them outside the sale. I'm thinking I'll order earlier next year.

I got mine yesterday! I also got my huge box of irises from the unnamed iris swap, so it totally felt like xmas! My free seeds were also cinnamon basil. One thing I bought was the mix of 3 kinds of runner beans--that packet is double the size of the others, and stuffed! They divided the beans into 3 packets too--very nice. I also bought Walking Stick Kale. It wasn't on sale, but I thought it would look interesting and could make neat bean poles. Has anyone gown it? They sent a page on instructions on it, which I toght was very nice. Tom Clothier has info on it too.

I must second Tiffy's recommendation of the Lee Valley pens. I bought one about three years ago and it is still going strong. Of course, I am a bit nerdy about my 'tools' and I do not use it for anything but labels. I have left labels out overwinter and the writing is still clearly readable. I first started with Sharpies, but they will fade with UV rays. Karen, my nerdiness carries over to my labels. I save plastic containers from detergent, fabric softener, even olive oil. Using another of my 'tools' from Lee Valley, the crash/clamshell scissors, I cut them up into labels (nerdy again) according to a template of a favourite label I've kept for years. What's nice about these labels is that you can read them through the 2-litre bottles I use. The only thing that removes the ink is finger nail polish remover, so I re-cycle all my labels, even if I have to re-write them. And this kind of plastic lasts for years in the outdoors. I first made these labels while watching TV and still have some blanks left in my 'pen and labels' container, so I won't need to make any this year. My nerdiness and my tools is family joke: no one touches them!!!