Drew51, My plants are still young and I'm keeping them small. I didn't like the fruit so I ditched the Mulberry and the gooseberries. Of fruiting age I have 1 Cherry, 2 blueberries, and 2 blackberries. This year I harvested nearly a gallon of sweet cherries, 1.25 gallons of blueberries, and a gallon of blackberries. I'm guessing they would be larger and produce more if planted in the ground. Not that I'm an expert, but I've learned much on this forum. Fruitnut grows a ton of stuff in pots. gardenweb's search function seems to limit results to the previous year's posts. However, you can direct google to search a specific site. Check out fruitnut's old posts. Try google searches like this site:gardenweb.com fruitnut blueberries. My quick tips would be, 1) The rule of thumb is that your plants will need to be 1 or 2 zones hardier than your zip code reflects, unless you protect them in the winter. 2) Pot size matters. I think fruitnut grows everything in 5 gallon pots or smaller. I'm using 14 gallon rubber maid rough totes with drain holes drilled in the bottom. 14 gallons is pretty heavy. I can't drag anything larger. 3) Potting soil is a big deal. Most of the commercial stuff isn't up to the task. Making your own is better and cheaper. And it's easy. However that discussion is a little bit longer and the recipe varies a little for acid loving plants. If you decide to try potted plants, circle back around to the topic of potting soil. 4) Your plants will probably need water every day in the summer. 5) Fertilizer is important in pots. I'm still working on that. Check out fruitnut's posts. Good luck.

Like Malibu-Rose wrote I did a post about Benjamin Britten on my blog (see link). BB is a beautiful rose - I am however not sure it will like too much heat and sun - since the flowers fade much even here this far north in Europe, it even fries in hot sunny weather (90F is about as hot as it gets here). Like other Austins it seems to take rests in between flushes, where it spends more time growing than producing flowers. I agree that it is healthy, but I saw it get rust, when it grew next a rose that was infected - so if rust is an issue where you live I would consider that. Falstaff has beautiful flowers too - but it is not very productive with flowers either. It is a bit prone to mildew here. It can be grown as stiff upright, low climber here, but the flowers are smaller and not so perfect shaped in the second flush here -(We only get 2 flushes every season here - since the growing season is so short). I love both roses. They are unique and beautiful. As some write they do not bloom continously as some modern roses - and I only grow them in my cutting garden, because their growth habit does not suit my small garden. For a warm and sunny climate I think there are better roses - William Shakespare 2000 is like some mentioned one of the the best Austins. I do not know if it can be trained as climber though?? But tiny Austins like Tradescant (1 foot here) can become huge (6-7 feet trained again a split rail fence -as I have seen in Sacramento and Santa Barbara). William Shakespeare blooms alot most places I have seen it in USA. So I hope the original poster will find another rose - I am sure some living in CA can come up with some good alternatives. Here is a link that might be useful: Benjamin Britten

AccuWeather precipation records from April 1st to June 18 come in at 2.58" for me. It didn't tabulate what "trace" actually measured out as for several dates. Weather.com has a totally different number, closer to 5". So I'm not sure, although weather.com is reporting rain when it didn't rain on at least two days. Anyone have a certain/reliable source they use for precip. records? I'm in a smaller village so I wonder if the reporting stations are outside the boudaries of my village. Its also tough to track this year because each rainfall has been minute. I think the greaestt 24 hour rainfall in the last month was a staggering 1/2". I don't know how to keep up anymore with this thing they call a career and a family. Time for the plants to start dealing with mother nature on their own. I have to admit taking a half day of vacation to water for 5 hours just isn't right. I'm glad June is going to set a record for 90+ degree days to top it off.

Hi Jennie. I also did the minimal amount because of my knee. I really bit off more than I could chew this year. It would have been overwhelming even without an injury. My neighbor and I were noticing the in-ground shaded plants are fine, but everything in a container has been suffering in the heat. Well, I've been out in the garden this morning. And although I didn't necessarily set out to do this, I'm in the middle of pulling all the tomatoes in the south garden. I tried to keep some going by cleaning up the bad branches, but in some cases there was nothing left on the plant but the fruit! So, I just picked all the large tomatoes green, and decided to just let them ripen indoors rather than sit outside getting sunscald on the rotting vines. I'm going away for a week, leaving my neighbor to water, so I'm trying to do some garden cleanup before I go. No sense in putting effort into these plants or making my neighbor wonder if they need attention. The east garden - the SunGold and Suncherry might be salvagable -- we'll get to that later. I do have a dehydrator, it's a Nesco, and it has adjustable temperature. It is the round kind and it's fairly inexpensive. It was a gift but I think it was purchased around town. It works well enough, but if I was super serious, I would get this: http://smile.amazon.com/Excalibur-3926TB-Food-Dehydrator-Black/dp/B008OV4FD0/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1439678075&sr=1-1 and this accessory http://smile.amazon.com/Set-Excalibur-ParaFlexx-Re-usable-Non-stick/dp/B00RM1QSWE/ref=sr_1_7?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1439678193&sr=1-7 The cool thing about the box dehydrators is you can remove the trays and use them to make yogurt or kiefer in your own jars, or use them as a proofing oven, or to sprout grains. If you're into any of that stuff :) Have you made anything with your tomatoes Jennie? I did make tomato jam yesterday and it's delicious. Sauce still needs to be cooked down more. The OXO food mill I bought worked great! Jenn