Hello~ Just cooked a ham dinner and am pooped! lol. Cena~ Great plant and pictures! Shallow pots are hard to find here too! Maybe because Arizona isn't too great for bulbs. Frustrating though, I like shallow for cactus! Purple~ I love growing Basil too , just to have it around the garden to smell! As you say, if you barely brush up against it, oh the smell is heaven! I just brought in a lemon basil and stuck it in my pot with my Elephant Ear to see how it will grow indoors this winter. Have some mint I want to try inside too . :-) Toni~ I love growing herbs, just not in the micro climate I mentioned because of dirty run off from the roof. But have them all over the yard! I've heard lemon scented plants are good to ward off mosquitoes, so I have it around for that reason too. As far as what to add it too, that is just a matter of taste. I use it fresh in scrambled eggs, on spaghetti, and many other ways. In salads, it's endless. Key to remember, if cooking with fresh herbs, add them last so they don't overcook and become bitter. You got a Jade! LOL! Like you don't have enough plants? ;-) I'm sorry your a little disapointed with it at the moment, but I think there's a few reasons it's different, and in time it will change in color and form, I think the leaves have some curl to them and will change in time. It looks a little under watered maybe, but it is time to start cutting back a little. I got mine a year and a half ago. Even though I am only a few miles from Arid Lands, we still will have different growing results. Mine may get more sun, or less, diff. temps then what it was at the greenhouse. You bought yours towards the end of the growing season too. Mine was outside till just a few weeks ago, so it was getting quite a bit of sun, and we all know how sun colors up a Jade. At Arid lands, they grow under a shade cloth. So may not be in their best color there . :-) I will link what mine looked like when I first got it. It was a lot diff. then what it is now. I think in time, yours will change to look more like mine. Probably come spring when it is growing strong again, and the sun will be brighter. Right now Jades like cool nights, and warm days. Mine is inside due to almost losing it. It would normally be out right now and only protected from frost. Right now I would think a bright window, in a cool room. Mine is in a east window, and the room only has heat that filters in from the rest of house. This will be my first time having a Jade in for the winter, so I'm not real sure what to tell you as far as whats best. Maybe Josh, or Mike. :-) I usually winter all my plants out in a little greenhouse, we are mild compared to most, so that's always been enough, but almost losing this one this summer, I brought it in. I pick my plants just at random usually. :-) Just what looks neat or different at the time. I am looking for a good winter growing one right now. Oh.. I get lost so easy! LOL! I've changed a lot since March and have had to do things by myself I normally would have not done and driven to so many new places, I truly amaze myself, and am happy with how much I've grown! Planning a trip soon to Starr Nursery with my mom! Hope I find it! LOL!!! I dont get why people shoot our beautiful cactus either. But they are protected, so it's a major crime here! Yes, we got a box turtle last week. Our neighbor didnt want theirs anymore. So the asked me to take it. I love turtles! It's a small type and full grown, at 6". Yes, we play with it. :-) Not named yet, but thinking along the lines of the Daughter of Mahamid Ali. (Leila) It eats bugs so we have our work cut out for us! LOL! Gonna start raising fishing worms for her. :-) JoJo Here is a link that might be useful: Jade when I got it. (May 2011)

Hi, Katie here in Spanish Springs north of Sparks. Been here working on the yard for 10 years, became a master gardener in 07 and found out everything I was doing was wrong. This seems like a great place to learn even more local stuff since I see bunch of Reno area folks on here. I've been more a tree & shrubber, dabbling a little in veggies & flowers, but most of what I've done is literally for the birds. Last fall a few fruit trees went in the ground and hopefully they'll be for people. If there's anybody not yet familiar with the cooperative extension's horticulture program's resources I've linked the online list of Nevada publications. Your local office probably has more that aren't yet online. Also in Reno on Tuesday evenings through March short classes are being offered 6:30-8:30 at Bartley Ranch. This Tuesday, the 10th will be vegetable gardening, the 17th an introdution to permaculture, the 24th confessions of a lawn renovator and the 31st perennial gardens for all seasons. Good stuff! Here is a link that might be useful: UNCE publications

Hmmm, interesting and gratifying to know some of what I'm experiencing is shared by others. I too have a husband who adamantly refuses to travel. In our situation, I strongly suspect it has some undertones of passive-aggressiveness along with what others have mentioned. He can control at least the part of our relationship that involves that aspect of togetherness, or not. The other major component is also familiar from reading others' experiences. He simply has no interest in doing anything other than what he likes to do (diving/boating/canoeing). Anyway, my nuance that is a bit different is that I do have a career that brings me deep, deep joy and fulfillment. However it also keeps me so busy and often stressed that increasingly I find myself thinking 'I wonder what life would be like if every day belonged to me, to do--or not do--just what I want.' I am feeling that I need to start expanding my horizons now, because in 7 years at 62 YO I want to be prepared to retire completely. Financially we are on track. But I do not want to be the person who leaves a job that provided all my stimulation and then find: nothing. So I am in the pre-planning phase of the next stage of life. I love working with the age group at my job (teenage/college) so my thought is to find an outlet in some kind of service that would let me do that on my own terms. And as for traveling, given my druthers SunnyCottage that image is EXACTLY where I would choose to be! This summer I expanded my annual summer trip to Captiva (island on Florida's west coast) to 2 weeks and it was heaven. I could have stayed on and on and on. I do still want to see London though. And England in general. And Paris. And the national parks out west. And the South Pacific. At least thanks to this discussion I have some ideas about how to move forward with that phase of the midlife crisis :).

The house is top heavy, isn't it? On the plus side, the portico adds a ton of space to the attic floor and doesn't looks too bad in context with the rest of the lot. It's basically a tarted up raised ranch - the lower floor is like a basement and is not heated or cooled. You could remodel but it would have to be all cash as you could never get flood insurance and it couldn't be rolled into a mortgage. Our real estate market has come back a bit and the lot alone could be upwards of a million dollars but I think the fact that it's a one bedroom house hurts the value. Originally the owners tried to subdivide the property. The three lots were the house and pool, lot with deep water dock and lot with ancient garage. They sold the area with the dock for about 500k in late 2008. Then they lost the house and the bank sold the house and the garage lot next to it for 700k in 2010. It was actually a pretty good deal but between having to extensively remodel, paying expensive flood insurance on that fabulous pool and college tuition for two right around the corner, I just didn't have the stomach for it.