I am a newbie at gardening. We bought a house 3 years ago in the fall after everything had died. Needless to say the next year we had a heck of a freeze after most trees, plants had started to show and nothing bloomed. Then last year what a surprise we got and excitment when things actually bloomed and we can now figure out what we kinda have. Other than one plant that my husband loves but never, until now, have found out what it was. We have one loley old Turk's cap flower. I am so glad I went to your blog and saw the picture of what we could not figure out. Although I don't have a blog etc or pics. Thanks very much for posting yours and helping us out. It was wonderful to find out what we have around the house.

I hope everyone did ok in the Issac storm last week. We did ok, the gardens were thrashed worse than I imagined. I have been replanting veggies found dug/wind whipped outta the ground (not workin well but have saved some things. Lost almost all my tomatos :-( but, family is safe - so I set out to clean up. Welcome GardenHeart. I'm new here too, nice site, I like that one can locate others growin in the same areas. It is def a unique exp gardening down south! Natal: the 1st pictured bed is about 8ft wide x 16ft long. Access was limited due the forest behind it! We have woods not 3ft from the rear of this one and the animals thought it was a buffet! Using 4x4's with a "pathway" cut out was like makin them a trail. So we added a major drainage for each of the boxes, eliminated paths (which also helped with water distribution during downpours. Previously we had a lot of good soil wash away thru paths, now it just shifts but stays put) my kids and I have walkways along the edges of each box to access plants and just step over the lower boards to get in and out. The inconvience was well worth the reward in this case. The racoons and moles avoid the wood frame here. As far as the Citrus, we have a satsuma but it failed to produce this year. We fert with these 6inch stakes once a year and always had a plentiful harvest. (Time release ferts) this year we did it to late and it may have affected that :-( usually in Feb I add the stakes and it wasn't done til April. Shame on me I know. But a few friends have them and they failed to produce too so maybe a weather or bee problem :-( they spray A LOT for mosquitos down here and it can kill bees too...so I dunno

Dogpooponshoes, glad to hear you're ok. Only area of US 90 I've been able to get to so far is by the Bay St Louis/Pass Christian bridge. Of course the bridge is gone. And looks like pretty much every thing for 3 blocks in from the bay is gone or nearly. I'm up in Diamondhead. Fortunately above the storm surge. Am making a futile attempt to protect what's left of the garden from the roofers, fence people, tree cutters. They survived the storm but many are not expected to survive the recovery. (I have a small prince sago, the tree cutter ran over it with a large bucket truck. Survived that. And I'm not sure what the fence people did to it. But it looks a lot worse now. (And I'm not sure where to find another one. Will wait to see if it sends up new growth next spring. Guess I was lucky enough and far enough alone to begin thinking of what to do with the garde. (Replace the magnolia with a few mature palms perhaps. And spend some time going through the Pensacola nurseries this weekend. I did drive down Beatline. The Beatline nursery. The building looked ok. But everything was dead. The oaks weren't the only ones to take a hit. The pines along I-10 look about dead. As you pointed out. There was pretty much of a drought after Katrina. So there wasn't anyting to wash the salt out. Judging from the high water mark on the Kiln/Waveland interchange. The area was covered by about 15 feet of gulf water. Here is a link that might be useful: Mississippi coast

If that is a Juliet... I grew one last year and it was huge. Very productive and did not suffer from the leaf problems my other tomato varieties had. I hope you are going to grow it in the ground rather then a container? Juliet gets bad reviews and I suspect it is because a lot of gardeners try to grow it in a container and like I said, it is a monster.... Small oval shaped tomatoes... sized between a cherry and a regular slicing tomato. I like this one a lot.... Get it in the ground as soon as you can.