1. Different soil conditions call for different strategies. My home garden is very rich, tending toward clay. My new community garden was fertile, but very sandy. It's a whole new ballgame! 2. Many vegetables can be put out or seeded "as soon as the soil can be worked", but results vary. This year, I learned: a) If you cover your pea rows with clear plastic you'll get nearly 100% germination, and a crop a week or 2 earlier. Without the plastic, many of them rot. b) Spinach liked to be started under plastic as well c) Brussels Sprouts love going out as early as possible d) Give broccoli a couple of extra weeks before transplanting. If they go out too early, you get small heads. e) Lettuce transplants can go out first thing. They do much better under cloche or cold frame rather than "naked" but also prefer to remain in the house an extra couple of weeks. They also liked to be seeded under plastic. f) Potatoes planted out first thing will just sit there and do nothing. Next year try planting some over a warm compost pile... 3. High density planting results in smaller yields. Exception: Bush beans don't seem to care, but don't expect much from the second flowering. 4. I'm going to have to find a cantaloupe that resists mildew well if I'm going to be able to grow any (grrr!) 5. You can germinate carrots and bush beans well in sandy soil in hot weather if you spread a thin layer of straw over the planting beds to help retain moisture. 6. Swiss Chard really *loves* leaf mulch (kale OTOH appeared to be indifferent) 7. If you hill potatoes with straw, moles (or voles) will move in, and snack on your spuds. If you hill them with fall leaves, you may get brown spots in your potatoes (tannins?) Noticed brown in the veins of my leaf lettuce as well... 8. Volunteer tomato plants will produce a crop if we get a warm fall. 9. Green tomatoes stored with apples will continue to ripen right through until Christmas, regardless of size/maturity level at picking 10. If you don't thin your carrots enough you get bags and bags of baby carrots. After working through this, you realize that bigger *is* better, at least when it comes to carrots... 11. Just because spinach did well in the fall last year doesn't mean it will do well this year. 12. 4 ft is not a tall enough a fence to discourage deer 13. Given their choice of everything in the garden, rabbits prefer green beans (assuming you're out of sunflower or curcurbit sprouts) 14. You can compost a squirrel in about a week, if conditions are good (and around here, conditions are *always* good lol!) 15. A little humanure goes a long way. Two 5 gallon pails in a 4x4x4 composter is plenty. If you put 3 times that amount in, be prepared for a lot of the nitrogen to gas off, and for your neighbors to start making inquiries... Cheers, Tim

Scarleta- I've had a lot of trouble with aphids in my lighted shelves indoors where I start seedlings. It's all because I foolishly brought some plants back in from outside. Those aphids really get around. Is there some time you can have the greenhouse empty to get rid of them and then never bring any plant inside that has been sitting outside to reinfest them? Perhaps it's harder with a greenhouse since it's outdoors and perhaps the aphids can find ways to get in. There must be some way to control them like Safer's Insecticidal soap or Neem. I also tried soapy water without much success and damaged a few seedlings. Have you tried the real heat-lovers in your greenhouse like okra, watermelons, and cantaloupes? It's not hot enough here to grow them in the ground. You might find lots of good ideas on the greenhouse and structures forum, /strucs. Here is a link discussing peppers. I don't have greenhouse experience to help you. Is yours heated in winter? Do you use it to start seedlings for outdoors, and make cuttings in winter? That's what I do with my lighted shelves but I don't have sufficient light or space to grow tomatoes or peppers to fruiting stage in winter, which would be nice. My peppers don't do well in our cold soil so I have them and eggplants in pots on my deck and they are fruiting and have no signs of aphids. Here is a link that might be useful: greenhouse forum on peppers

Yep a few tears here too! And then I started thinking about how I was nagging my husband to get back to weightlifting and secretly nagging myself as well. I could use a vacuum cleaner lift it lots up and down the stairs or something. I thought doc Martens were shoes but what do I know.

Interesting post on the logistic of adding a small wood burning stove to a 3 season porch. We have a lot of dead and downed wood on our property and we have campfires outside of the porch but I would really LOVE a small wood burner inside the porch to add more time to campfire season, and also more weather options. We hope to turn it into a 4 season room due to wanting to spend time there all year round due to the views and lovely light. I have the perfect spot for a small wood burning stove, but the logistics are up in the air. My screened in porch is very much like yours. There's not only the issue of the walls (which I think could be covered around the stove area with fireproof radiating tiles) but also the issue of the floor support. In our case it is just a wood porch floor, so I'm wondering if it needs a cement base or some type of shoring up of the support of the floor under the stove area . . .