Wonderful! I have a question for you, the Edamame that you get in the sushi bars, what exactly is that and do you have that on your list? I would be interested in ANY of the following, what ever is easiest for you: Jackson Wonder Lima Blue Lake Pole Bean Kentucky Wonder Pole Bean Florida Broadleaf Mustard Hybrid #7 Spinach Sweet Spanish Onion Ruby Red Swiss Chard Detroit Dark Red Beet Dixie Speckled Bush Lima Henderson Bush Lima

Well its time for another update. Just got done making some Bread N Butter and Kosher Dill Pickles out of the Boston Pickling cucumbers. That was roughly 15 pounds of cucumbers, hopefully I will be able to make one more batch. The straight 8's and burpless variety are coming on fairly strong now. I have picked 1 bell pepper so far and a few more are coming. Been picking the Jalapenos and Cayenne peppers for awhile now (anybody have any good salsa recipes also looking for some good things to do with my cayennes already made some pepper sauce with it). Getting ready to start pickling some of the Banana Peppers that have come in so far. The green beans are coming along quite well and have been picking them for a few weeks now. The tomato plants have all pretty much overgrown the tops of the cages except for the cherry (but they're trying their hardest). Have gotten some Rutgers and quite a lot of the Black princes picked and eaten. I picked 2 Lemon Boy's and I have to say I really like the taste. The 2 Zucchini plants went nuts and I must have picked around 25 - 30 so far. The yellow squash (straight and crook neck) have produced pretty good have gotten about the same number from them. I think they are all getting pretty played out now. I may try planting a couple more of each (anybody got any good recipes for them?) The cantaloupes are doing pretty good and I have several that are getting pretty big.My watermelon is coming right along have the sugar babys on a trellis. Has anybody had any luck growing them that way and not using something to support the melons like stockings? (as I have 12 melon plants and 12 cantaloupe plants and that could get a little on the costly side). The Charleston Grey and Jubilee plants are running right along and are starting to flower up. The pumpkin I planted also seems to be doing quite well. The Eggplant is coming right along and have lots of flowers and I am getting ready to pick the first one. There's probably something I've missed but thats all for now. I may take some pics and post them later as I have to say that being a first time gardener I am rather proud of the way its coming along. I hope everyone is having the same luck I am.

I just joined gardenweb, and saw your listing. I bought several pomegranates from a man from Louisiana at the Truck Crop Experimental Station fall vegetable show in Crystal Springs, Mississippi. I've been growing them in Jackson Ms and got a dozen pomegranates from them last year. Delicious! The man who sold them said they take 4 years to produce fruit, but they are worth the wait! I am starting some cuttings right now from stump sprouts. If they root I could let you know. The 'Wonderful' should be good if that nursery in Slidell can be trusted. The one I have is not a wonderful but is a little lighter in color of the aril (the juicy part around the seed). It is absolutely wonderful, tho! Anyway, hope you had luck with your pomegranates! Susan

You're welcome. Green beans are popular, easy-to-grow and the flavor of fresh snap beans is so superior to that of canned or frozen beans that it isn't even funny. Bush beans would give you a pretty rapid harvest---some of the earlier varieties begin producing a harvest about 50 to 55 days after the seeds were sown. Sugar snap peas are the same way. Pole beans are trickier in terms of getting a harvest early. Some years, our heat here cranks up so high that you find the heat causing blossom drop almost as soon as the plants start flowering. In that sort of situation, there's nothing you can do but keep the plants watered and happy and wait for temperatures to drop in the fall. I usually plant bush beans for a spring and summer harvest and pole beans for a fall harvest. I cannot remember if any of us mentioned summer squash, but those also are relatively easy, at least until the squash bugs and squash vine borers find the plants. I love summer squash, but some people don't care for it. We like to grill zucchini outdoors when we're grilling meat for a meal. A lot of people hesitate to even plant squash because of all the pest issues, but I grew winter squash of all kinds and summer squash as well for a good 5 or 6 years before the squash vine borers and squash bugs even discovered our garden. It is a lot harder to get a good harvest now, but to me it is still worth it. I think my husband would be perpetually happy with the garden if all it ever produced was peppers, tomatoes, onions, melons and lettuce, but he'll eat just about anything I can grow. Once you get used to the superior flavor of vine-ripe food brought in from the garden to the house to eat the same day, you'll find it harder and harder to purchase produce at the grocery store. Once we got used to home-grown melons, we completely stopped buying melons at the store. Now we just eat our own fresh melons in season and rarely eat them the rest of the year. You mind find that y'all develop a taste for veggies that you think you don't like if you give them a chance. So many vegetables are so much better fresh from the garden that some people who don't like veggies suddenly discover they like them after all. I would have suggested sweet corn, but I wasn't sure how much space you have. Sweet corn from the garden is so yummy! I try to grow enough plants to harvest at least 200 ears per year. We eat all the fresh corn we can stand to eat, and freeze the rest the same day it is picked. I grow 3 or 4 varieties every year, choosing varieties with different DTMs so that the harvest is spread over a longer period. If I plan it well, and if Mother Nature cooperates, we have fresh corn for at least 2 months. Potatoes are one vegetable that a lot of people don't grow. Either they don't want to do all the digging involved in harvesting, or they feel like potatoes from the grocery store are so cheap that they'd rather buy them. However, the flavor of fresh potatoes is so incredibly earthy and good that they'll ruin you forever---you'll never want to eat another store-bought tomatoes. You know how much better home-grown tomatoes are than store-bought tomatoes? Well, home-grown potatoes are the same way. The first year I grew potatoes, their fresh flavor knocked our socks off. I think the trick is to try things your wife and daughters might like, and just continue to try something new every year until y'all figure out what it is you like to eat fresh from the garden. Everything I've tried has not been a success. Eggplant is an example. I love growing eggplant, and the fruit are available in so many interesting colors and shapes....but no one in our family (including me) cares for eggplant,so I don't plant it any more. Kohlrabi is another thing I cannot get anyone to eat, although it is easy to grow and looks interesting in the garden. Part of the fun of garden is experimenting and finding what you like. If you've never grown Sungold (or the similar Sun Sugar) cherry tomatoes for your family, I think y'all would like them. Everyone to whom I've ever given a Sungold tomato has just raved about how flavorful they are. Sungold and Sun Sugar have a sort of tropical fruitiness you don't find in any other tomato. Fruit is my favorite thing to grow, but the results can be a lot more erratic than those in the veggie garden. Partly it is that recurring late freezes experienced in our climate often kills the flowers or tiny fruit on fruit trees early in the season. The other issue is pests. Because fruit is so sweet, you really have to fight the pests, birds and varmints some years in order to get a harvest. I generally grow blackberries, plums, peaches and figs. I have citrus trees in pots I carry inside in the worst weather. Right now they're out in the greenhouse just loving these sunny days. Strawberries have been erratic for me. They do great in a cooler year with lots of moisture, but then along comes a hot dry summer like 2011 and kills the strawberry plants. I'm in a part of OK that gets less moisture and more drought than central and northeastern and eastern OK, so strawberries are hit and miss here. When you have the right soil and the right weather, though, they are delightful.