One good tip I learned (from trial & error, then much research) is to plant and harvest things at the proper time for your growing zone- even in places like california where people might tell you "oh you can grow anything there all year round"... not true! some plants are warm season, some are cool season, some like to overwinter, some are annual, some are perennial, some are biennial, etc. Research each plant, and also don't assume plants that seem similar will have the same needs, for example peas and beans both come in bush and vining varieties and grow in pods, but peas like cool weather while beans like it hot- except for a few certain beans that actually do prefer it cool... Also, potatoes can tolerate cool weather while sweet potatoes don't. Kale & lettuces grow best in cool weather while chard seems to do fine in hot or cool. You get the idea. If you plant things at the wrong time you'll be wasting your time and the seeds- I tried lettuce when it was too late to be planting it and in the heat of summer it went straight to bolt. I've planted zucchini and tomatoes when it was too cold for them and they grew poorly and didn't produce fruit. Harvest times are just as important as planting times- I planted radishes once and they didn't seem to get big enough by harvesting time so I thought I could just let them keep growing for a while longer- but found out that if you leave them in the ground too long they get tough and too spicy and shrivel up instead of getting bigger! Also it may be tempting to let a zucchini get huge, thinking it will just provide more food when you let a fruit get 2 feet long... No! Harvest them young & tender and about the size they sell them in the grocery store (or smaller), any larger and you get a hard shell, lots of seeds, and very little (and quite tasteless) flesh. Moral of these stories is to research each fruit or veggie you want to grow & follow the "directions", it will mean the difference between success & failure! Also- healthy soil is #1 important thing for plants - no chemical fertilizer! Compost is your best friend. Mulch is your other best friend- use what is available & free- leaves & pine needles are what I use. Good luck!!!

I've had a look in Google for you, but I'm in the UK and get mainly UK results. Still, I'll do my best. People in the States usually seem to look at MaxiAids for adapted devices like this, so they might be worth a try. http://www.maxiaids.com/ Failing that, here are some more. Audible Spirit Level called the Stabula from Tool King in the US http://www.toolking.com/products/52437959.aspx?c_j=37959 Another Audible Spirit Level from the RNIB in the UK http://onlineshop.rnib.org.uk/display_item.asp?n=01&c=50&sc=121&id=2299&it=1&l=3&d=0 Brochure for this item (Word doc) http://onlineshop.rnib.org.uk/DownloadInstructions.aspx?filename=DY08.doc&status=True&actualFile=DY08%20new.doc&prodid=2299 UK £28.69 including tax. There's another one at ConformUK http://www.conformuk.com/audible_spirit_level.html Price UK £32.25 Yet another one at Cobolt.co.uk http://www.cobolt.co.uk/cobs/product.asp?dept_id=4&pf_id=0048 Price: UK £22.95 MK Products, based Cyprus! http://www.mkprosopsis.com/Hardware/HouseholdProducts.htm They claim they have contacts with distributors world-wide. Hope that helps. Seems to me there are masses of blind gardeners in the world, and I'm one of them, though I confine myself to plants and don't get too involved with the hardware! Hoping to encourage others to have a go, I put together a Blind Gardening web page at http://www.batfromhell.co.uk/blindgardening.html We have an organisation here called Thrive, which does all kinds of wonderful things with blind gardeners. Best of luck with the landscaping! And Happy New Year to all! Vince Here is a link that might be useful: Vince's Parallax: Blnd Gardening Page

Last year was my first year to get dirt under my nails in WCentral TX. - The most expensive mistake was planting a full afternoon sun front bed of approx 15 1-3g shrubs in the middle of June. I thought that watering them every day would help, so they either fried or I drowned them or a combo of both. - Not remembering that quite a few things were perennials and throwing them away once they started to fade - Not realizing what sq feet equals, I was still used to metric. So my little patch of wildflower seed I sowed in the fall really should've been spread out a bit more, okay a lot more. - Just because the garden center sells it, doesn't mean A) that it will 'work' here B) that it is the correct time to plant it

Ahhh, a hero at last ;-) Thank you Janie. I freely admit being a housewife who stumbled onto a miracle ;-) If I kept that information to myself it would have been a sin. I have, since then, bought a few books on syntax and grammer, though I am still bewildered by commas, semi colons, and the elusive--double dash--used to highlight specific points. Most of the books I've bought to assist me with WS are about human psychology (motivations), leadership, dealing with idiots (troll control) differentiated learning and html. Grammer, because of a far greater need for the others, still remains overshadowed and at the bottom of the list for writing skills. I'll never earn a GWA award, I probably won't ever get one of Eddie's adorable Green Thingies. And I also won't ever make much of a nickel off of WS because I WANT it kept Fair Use. WS is my intellectual property, I locked it up very early on with CRs, and I sought an AgNIC partnership to further protect that. Because of the partnership it MUST all remain as/and continually be created for Fair Use. Anyone, at any time, may copy and duplicate all WS information or photos for educational.nfp.critic use. I don't have to be contacted and I don't even have to be mentioned. From my personal/emotional point of view, Fair Use also eliminates a lot of justification angst that anyone of us would feel if we were to see our words and methods in another body of work, without, at least, a mention of our name(s) as source. This used to be very frustrating to me. VERY frustrating. After I accepted Fair Use as a concept of my heart, rather than a too-bad/too-sad reality, I was able to focus the direction towards educational provision ;-) and write more about the means than the visual results. I am currently writing (not sure you would/should call it that) interactive educational exercises, otherwise known as quizzes and puzzles, for the website. They teach with term/concept repetition as the learning tool. They work by user input. This, for me, is where accuracy is most important. As an example, Marrubium vulgare is horehound and not hoarhound--though both seem to be used interchangably. I verified with the NAL Thesaurus, which now has a server that cranks out search results as fast as google. (HOORAY!) Janie, I'm glad you're WSing, I'm glad for everyone who does. WS is like pulling a rabbit out of hat, except that it's not one rabbit. And we all KNOW what rabbits do. They make easy to strew about, mild to use, fertilizer raisinettes for our gardens ;-) Vive la Bunny.