20 gallon tubs from Home Depot ONLY $6 !!! You can get these and they are intended to last outside in the elements. Read the label on the side and KEEP the label. (I only kept one label.) I got several couple of years ago and only one cracked - I returned it and the Home Depot folks gave me another one no questions asked. You will see 20 gallon tubs at WalMart and other places but they are not intended to stay outside in hot sun and freezing temps. If you want decor then build a surround for these tubs with inexpensive wood from Home Depot and paint it whatever color your pool area looks good in. You will still get by with less $$$$ than buying whiskey barrels. I noticed those 1/2 barrels are going up UP UP in price. Around here the plastic ones are $20++ each and the real wood ones are almost $50!! Cheers, DL

ingrid, When I first started reading GW, I couldn't understand how people could SP a healthy rose. But now I know. If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't. It's simple. I too maxed out on Austins, and probably will not add anymore. I think I have every possible color anyway:) Strange things do happen. When I first moved here 7 years ago (after never having gardened in my life!) I planted 6 white bearded irises. Well now I have about 100 from that 6 and they are in bloom now. I think I get more comments about them as I do my roses. And now the irises are intermingled with the roses (I do have to dig them up, separate them and redistributed a bit more this year) and it looks great. So a simple HD bag of irises does wonders. I probably should look at reblooming ones, but now I have an emotional attachment to these. And I can't say enough about alfalfa. Last year was the first time I used it and I do think it makes a huge difference. I have the biggest fattest buds this spring and am seeing many basals. I've also noticed that the root balls of many of my roses are thick with feeder roots where they were not before. So I'm sold. I'm really excited because I have 12 bands from Vintage (11 teas, one HP) and am planning a new rose bed on the other side of my yard. I too have fallen in love with teas and yes, the lack of pruning required is a plus! I just hope I get to stay in this house long enough to enjoy the fruits of all this labor!

Funny, Jane, no one ever calls me either. I don't understand it.... ;) Carl, I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, and I'm even more sure you were just picking on me - :) - but I feel compelled to defend my honor and intelligence (I will admit to being - and this is a big admission, lol - to being like Otto in "A Fish Called Wanda" !! :)) and so need to point out that when you buy lettuce bagged by a huge corporation it was most likely picked by migrant workers making terrible pay. When you buy a bag of lettuce it was picked by, - and washed and bagged! - by a) the farmer herself/himself; b) their kids or some local kids hired for the summer for minimum wage (better than what migrant workers get) or c) an old lady like me who wishes she owned a farm and works along side the local kids for minimum wage just to get that farm experience. So, yes, paying a higher price at a farmer's market does make a difference when the farmer at said market is a real person and not a corporation. There's not really a "top dog" at family-owned and operated local farms. Jane, the article you linked to doesn't really give reasons at to the difference in spending, but what caught my eye is the part about having more money to spend on the good things in life (or however they worded it) - and this is my beef with American consumers. They hem and haw about paying for healthy food, and would rather buy cheap, processed, dare I say "fake" food, for pennies so they can have money to buy big-screen tvs and smart phones. IMHO, good food IS one of the good things in life, not to mention one of the things that will keep us healthy. Sheesh, I'm beginning to trip over all the soapboxes around my desk! ;) So, at the risk of making everyone jealous, I will say I live a half mile down the road from a pick-your-own blueberry and strawberry farm. I walk down there several times a summer to pick fruit, although not as much now as when my kids were little. Unfortunately they are not organic, but I still support the farm (partly out of selfish reasons, as I would hate to see this beautiful land developed!). My problem is I don't care for frozen fruit. I'm not a smoothie drinker, yogurt eater, cereal lover - I don't eat lots of the stuff one would put mushy frozen fruit in, preferring my fruit straight up, so I stuff myself full of berries (blueberries in particular) in the summer, and the rest of the year do without. In some ways, that makes the blueberries seem more special. Funny, my husband and I can't get enough of fresh corn or watermelon in the summer. My kids have always groaned - ugh, corn AGAIN??!! - but they obviously have grown up having corn and watermelon available all year, whereas my husband and I grew up when you got it in season and that was pretty much that. So you did stuff your face with it all summer, and NEVER got tired of it, knowing it would be gone soon.... The watermelon however, worries me. Neither of my kids even likes it, which always makes me concerned that they were switched in the nursery when they were born.... Dee

Okiefamily, Last year was a difficult bean year for a lot of us and I blame it on the weather, so don't know if your wall/heat gave you additional issues or not. I think peppers will be fine as long as they are hot peppers and not sweet peppers. No, that's not an attempt at a joke. Hot peppers will set fruit even in extreme heat (sweet pepper production slows down in heat) so they'd likely go right on producing even alongside that hot wall. However, the reflected heat could sunscald (that's the garden word for sunburn) the peppers themselves. Watch for a light spot on the peppers that first appears as fading color and then enlarges and turns brownish-white. That's sunscald. If you start seeing sunscald on the peppers, rig up a sheet or something to shade them part of the day. Carol, I like the trellis idea. I am not entirely sure how far Red Ripper will run if you let it go as far as it wants, but I'm planning to plant it to climb a 2-story trellis this year and find out. I've heard it can go at least 18' and I know they are really vigorous, but I've never let them run as long/tall as they want before. Megan, Cherries might be fine on that wall. In fact, earlier in the season it likely will help them make great growth. I wouldn't worry about even the possibility of shadecloth until late June. At that point, just watch them and see if they are growing 'normally'. If you see signs of heat stress, like blossom drop (rare in cherry types) or wilting of the foliage, then you could rig up a shade cloth for them. They might never need it, or they might. Hard to guess and think a lot depends on this coming summer's rainfall and temps. Cindy, Glad you saw the humor in my torture comment. LOL Corn is easy as pie. A nice dense planting of a tall corn variety would shade that wall nicely and you could grow the type of corn of your choice....an heirloom or OP type with old-fashioned corn favor, an older hybrid sweet corn with normal sweet corn flavor, a newer supersweet or synergystic hybrid type, a popcorn, an ornamental broomcorn, a dent or field corn, or an ornamental corn. That's a lot of choices! The only real issue that might arise is that if there are too many sheds or garages, other buildings like a neighborning home, privacy fences, etc. near that west wall, then air flow might be impeded and that might impact pollination. If the rest of the veggies pollinate just fine on that side of the house, then I'd imagine corn would too. Last year was a really difficult gardening year because we had all the wrong weather at all the wrong times. I wouldn't judge myself as a gardener based on last year's garden performance. Just blame it all on the weather. I don't know if I've ever seen sunchokes locally, but you could order them online. I think tomatoes are a possibility if you just watch them carefully. Do you have a specific variety in mind, because if you don't, some of us who grow tomatoes in hot locations could list our best heat-loving tomatoes. : ) Okra might do well alongside that wall. I've never tried it on a west-facing wall but it certainly doesn't mind the heat anywhere else I've ever grown it. In fact, since okra needs heat to perform, you might get earlier okra pods along a hot wall so it could be a perfect 'match'. You could be our official hot west wall researcher and try 2 or 3 different plants along that wall and see which performs best for you there. We'll all be eagerly awaiting your results. Dawn