I'm late with this but in zone 3 we're late with everything to do with gardening! :) I no longer do a veggie garden but have a large mostly perennial garden and deliberately let a lot of them self-seed. Might not continue to do that as am tired of "weeding" and trying to find spaces/homes for more plants. My worst (or best) self seeders are feverfew, shasta daisies, Jacob's ladder, mallow, chives, 3 kinds of poppies, and I'm always happy to see a few Bachelor's Buttons turn up continuing from a wild-flower mix many years ago. We always have lots of sunflower volunteers cause the birds are so helpful and spread them from the feeder. We just transplant them to a better location. Most years we have volunteer onions, potatoes, or even occasionally a tomato plant from the compost. Many years ago while living in a warmer climate I planted dozens of tomato plants and despite inviting everyone in to help themselves many tomatoes self-seeded. The next year I had a huge crop of volunteers as well as a huge influx of tomato beetles. Ugh! I picked those bugs for days. Those were volunteers I could have lived without.

I have decided what to do I am going back to garden beds not one huge garden with no paths. I only did that to accommodate my next year's attempt of a 3 sisters garden, but I am not going to try that next year after all. this year was a flop. and...Texas is a bit hot for corn and I read about all the problems with a 3 sisters garden. First the beans produce less. You need a really big place since if things are too close together, the beans will not get enough light. Sweet corn is not strong enough to support pole beans. I think from what I read, dent corn was used by the Indians. I could try that, but not sure family would like it since it is not as sweet as modern sweet corn. It gets very tall too, which would shade the beans even more. I have lots of food allergies and about all I can eat is legumes in the green stage (not dried), beets, winter squash and broccoli . So I believe I should focus my efforts there. I am not trying broccoli in Texas though. Fresh broccoli is easy to purchase organic. Limas, and cow peas can't be purchased green in any store around here. Green beans and peas can be purchased frozen at the health food store, but never fresh. Beets and winter squash are hit and miss. So there is a big benefit for me growing these. I am planting celeriac and rutabaga too. I purchased those at a whole foods once and they did not make me sick. Those two are not available at my local health food store. I do not think I will have any luck with celeriac, but I will give it a go. I am also planting herbs and greens for my family this fall. Not such a big deal if they don't work out though, since they do not eat organic. Anyway, I will build beds (again) about 12 X 3. 2 beds by the house and 2 further out. I am making them longer this time since everything does better closer to the house where it is cooler and gets more afternoon shade. If I made them shorter with paths between it would waste the valuable, close to the house space. The reason I am breaking up the beds with 1 path between, is 1 long bed is annoying to have to carry the hose around and I need to leave a space for the down spout. That area now is nothing but mud with all the rain we have been getting. I am not going out as far, as I have the huge garden now. Everything dies past 8 feet out, too hot! I guess I would have never known all that stuff unless I tried it first. If I don't have enough room for the beans, I will try something I saw in web land. They attached strings to the house gutter and attached to the ground. The beans climbed those. I also saw some neat beans climbing up privacy fences with strings. Sounds like a plan. As far as the drought problem. I will dig 1 foot round holes every 2 feet in the center of the beds. I will fill with rocks and put mulch over that. I will only water the holes when the soil shows to be dry. I surely hope that works. I did not think the ditch idea would work as well because: 1. the sides would eventually fall down 2. if I filled the ditch with water, even plants that did not need water would get it 3. seemed to me, the ditches wasted too much space 4. no place to walk 5. boring rows resulted 6. the mud problem near the down spout 7.water would evaporate from ditches unless I covered with mulch or something and would have to be re-dug when everything decomposed. If I filled with rocks, that would be a lot of rocks. 8. ditches wasted valuable close to the house space 9. too much water in the spring and fall, creating mud Just did not seem to be feasible to me. I filled in the ditches. I can't make beds until the current plants are done producing. I guess I will put things pretty much back the way they were in stages. Your post on ollas gave me courage to try out my rock/hole idea. Thanks for posting it. It is way cool! I hate to fail. I need a success every once in a while to keep up this gardening thing. I got so little produce so far. Here are the only things I have gotten so far: last fall -2005 about 5 winter squash - very sweet and yummy no sugar pumpkins 1 jackolantern in December - too late to use this spring - 2006 about 3-4 weeks of English peas every other day. Not sweet 5 small beets - not sweet 2 tiny rutabagas - not great taste no parsley - no sprout no scallions - no sprout no onions - no sprout no radish - died in heat as seedlings no spinach - no sprout lots of over ripe cover crop radishes not doing these thing in spring ever again. This summer - 2006 5 ears of poorly formed corn with ear worms about 6 tomatoes (from 2 plants) no green beans - plants died in heat, except one plant, it is blooming now (Sept 2006) no limas - very few sprouted, rest died in heat 1 unripe charentais melon - picked cause it split, rest of plants died tasted OK, but rather crunchy , pour sprouting no cucumbers - very few sprouted, rest died a couple of handfuls of cow peas, that I found out I was picking unripe. The last handful I picked, tasted great since I waited till the pods were yellow. I boiled in homemade beef broth with a bit of rendered beef fat. I would love to get at least 1 cup to make a decent meal for one. I will say things are going a bit better this fall. Hear is what has sprouted so far wax beans limas peas 7 beets squash - some have borers others may but not looking sick yet cowpeas - making pods! 2 rutabagas 2 radishes 0 cabbage - need to give a few more days I am disappointed with the beets, rutabaga and radish. I planted more beets and rutabaga. Sorry the post is so long. I am home bound so gardening fills my days, ether doing it or thinking about it. I wish it was working out better. Texas is very inhospitable. I will give the things that I have had little to no success with, a few more tries then giving up on them. My grandma had a nice large garden in Vermont. She did not have everything keel over like this. Just had frost to worry about. Not willing to move to the arctic for a bit of gardening success though. Thanks for listening. Mary

When I think of pioneers I think of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I know she was a little later in the time period but things didn't change nearly so fast in those times. I don't beleive tomatoes were grown or used back then but I remember from Laura Ingalls they grew beans and wheat and corn. They would have also grown potatoes. Pioneers were trying to keep body and soul together so they would have concentrated on edible plants and some herbs. In that series of books Farmer Boy gives the best description of what was grown in Almonzo's father's farm. Joann

I picked a cantaloupe yesterday and am salivating over two 'Moon and Stars' watermelons that look close to picking! I've been picking cherry tomatoes all over, and a couple larger slicing tomatoes. The squash is about done, I need to plant more but the borers keep getting them. It's getting close to time to start planting for fall so I'm planning where to put things.