Gean, "Rob, you'll never have to apologize to me for buying more roses; I wish I had a neighbor that was so afflicted!" Thanks :), I wish all of us could be neighbors. I'll have 1 'Long John Silver' on a large trellis and rambling along a split rail fence right behind the trellis, (see 1st pic), and the other one along with 'American Pillar' on a pergola over my patio that I'll be building this summer. The others will be on similar pillars as the ones in the 2nd pic and on the south wall of the house. The only roses that died on me last winter were 'White Dawn' and 2- 'Fair Bianca'. The FB were my fault because they weren't buried deep enough. Yes, I'll be posting pics. :) Rob:)

Hi Guys- On the mint, I think you need to find a plant that does well where you are. Keep it in pots (It's invasive, and manages to escape the pot...) I clip the flowers...most of the time..and when it begins to look scraggily, I divide it up. Lemon grass...the last time I bought lemon grass (It was years ago..) I got a healthy looking bunch that had some roots (just a few) I stuck 4 stalks in a glass of water on the window sill for a couple of weeks, and then planted it in the center of whiskey barrell, with other herbs around it (which was very pretty, until it ate its pot mates). To harvest, you have to get down and pull/cut it out by the roots (the grass blades are sharp) You use the white bulby part in Thai cooking, or you can just kind of bruise the bulb and throw it in a pot of tea. It gives a wonderful lemon flavor-with out being sour. This year I am growing sugar cane, stuck a couple of pieces (from the oriental grocery store) in a pot--It took a while to sprout.. Maggie

I don't much care for Heidi fresh, but it is better than nothing, I suppose, in hot weather. I use them for salsa. I make tons and tons of Annie's Salsa every year because we give jars of salsa as gifts to oodles of people, including our entire VFD and Tim's coworkers. I usually get my seeds for Heidi from whichever seed company I'm ordering from at the moment. I think the last time it was TomatoFest. I also really like the tomato seeds from Victory Seed. They always have really high germination rates and are great quality seeds. I have some hot weather faves, but none of them are as good as the regular tomatoes that produce in milder conditions. One heat-setting hybrid that has set fruit for me even when the high temps were over 105 (up to 110-112) in August is Phoenix. I also like Merced, but its seed has been off the market for almost a decade now. Every now and then I can find a Merced plant in Texas at a nursery that either stockpiled a lot of Merced seed before the seed company dropped it, or they are saving seed and have dehybridized it. Some of the standard varieties that have set fruit well for me in hot weather include Arkansas Traveler, Burgundy Traveler, Traveler 76, Sioux, Super Sioux, Homestead 24, Rutgers, Mortgage Lifter, Carmello, Dona, Chocolate Stripes (I remember it set fruit all summer long without ever slowing down in 2008 and 2009), Orange Minsk, Jaune Flamme', and Black & Brown Boar. I think that I got the seeds for most of those at TomatoFest, Victory Seeds and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. By the way, if you remember Dona and Carmello from decades past, I am not completely convinced the current ones are exactly the same variety those were back then, but they are close. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Early Girl. While we always plant it as an early variety, it often produces all summer long, including setting fruit in August, for me. Sometimes it starts looking kinda tired and "done" and so I'll cut it back by 50% and feed it and sit back and wait for it to cycle back into production. One note about the effect of heat on tomato fruit set: we all know that high temperatures inhibit fruit set but I think we often do not pay enough attention to the effect of relative humidity. In a hot, dry summer when our relative humidity often bottoms out daily in the teens or lower, the tomato varieties I listed above will set fruit sometimes in July and August even when the temperatures are well over 100 degrees. They do not do the same thing in a hot wet summer when the relative humidities are normal to high. So, I think almost any tomato has the capability to set well when we have a combination of high heat/low RH values. I first began to understand the role that relative humidity played in fruit set at high temperatures in about 2003 when it was ridiculously hot (108-110) in August and the fresh new Big Boy tomato plants I had set out in early July for fall tomatoes started blooming and setting fruit. They set fruit like crazy throughout August, despite high temps over 100, and our relative humidity was bottoming out in the single digits in the afternoons. I had put six Big Boy plants in the ground and I bet every one of them produced at least 50 lbs. of tomatoes. When the first freeze was due to hit, I sent bags and bags of green tomatoes to work with Tim for one of his coworkers who wanted to use them to make and can chow-chow. I later learned that fried green tomatoes he made were the big hit of his extended family's huge family reunion. Anyhow, after that incredible performance by Big Boy, I began to understand why my dad grew it every summer without fail and always had great fruit set. It is likely the relative humidity in north Texas wasn't as low back then because those were wetter years, but it must have been low enough for him to get good fruit set because he always had tomatoes all summer long. Since we have had so many drought years since then, I have been able to observe and note over and over that I get better fruit set in July and August in periods with low humidity than I get in identical temperatures with higher humidity. In general I am not a fan of the tomatoes bred specifically for setting fruit in high temperatures. Whatever it is that they do to make them set fruit at high temperatures seems to destroy the flavor genes. That explains why you won't see most of the heat-setting types like Sun Master, Sun Leaper, Heat Wave, Heat Wave II, etc. on my grow lists. Yes, some of them set fruit at really high temperatures, but they are so poorly flavored that I won't waste space growing them. When those types first hit the market, I'd grow every one of them for a year or two after it was released, hoping that maybe they finally had bred a heat-setter that was worth eating. They never did and I quit trying them. Phoenix was the first new heat-setting type I'd tried in a long time, and it has decent flavor and definitely sets in high temperatures. I agree on the seeds. There are plenty of seed companies that have lost my business because the costs per packet and the shipping costs have increased so much. Have you looked at Wilhite Seed? I don't know what they have in the beet department but I am fairly sure they always have a golden beet variety. Since they are a regional seed company based in Texas, everything I've ever purchased from them has done well for me. The amount of seed they include in each packet is astonishing...in a good way. They ship pretty quickly too. I'll link them below. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Willhite Seed

Yes it does help. Thanks. It identifies at least a couple of the problems. One, your containers are too small. As Nunyabiz said 15-20 gallon containers will improve your results 10 fold. Larger is even better. By watering vigilantly, I mean I water when the soil is almost dry Top of soil or down at root level. Condition of the top soil isn't a valid indicator of the need for water. BER is prevented by maintaining consistent soil moisture levels - never dry and never too wet. Allowing soil moisture to go back and forth between dry and drenched causes BER. Larger containers with slow drip irrigation maintains even soil moisture levels. Otherwise it is often necessary to add small amount of water several times a day and always first check the soil moisture at the root level. Container plants should also be heavily mulched with several inches of a good organic mulch. I fertilize every two weeks with an organic fertilizer like Mykes. About once a month I will add a bit more lime and some compost. This is a major issue and discussed here often. Organic fertilizers do not work well in containers because the soil has been sterilized and lacks the needed soil food web, the soil micro herd, that is necessary to convert the organic fertilizers to usable nutrients. The only way to make organic fertilizers and compost effective in containers is to regularly mixed in one of the various brands of soil activators that provide the needed bacteria. Using one of the bacterial-active liquid organics can help but since they leach out of the containers on a daily basis they must be replaced on at least a weekly basis if not more often. Otherwise one has to acknowledge that while organics work quite well in the ground, they don't work in containers and use liquid synthetics instead. The top half of the fruit is yellow and shriveled looking. That sounds like sun scald, uncommon for San Marzanos as they normally have quite thick foliage unless pruned too heavily. Of course weather is beyond out control other than providing shading when necessary but this past year has been record setting bad weather for the majority of the country so results this year are not a valid indicator of either variety or type performance. Hope this helps. Dave