I grew silver rose this year, it was the last garlic to come in and the onset of hot/dry summer stunted it a bit. I would not recommend it for hot parts of Arizona. A trick you can do with garlic is refrigerate it for a month before planting. This tricks the garlic into think it is spring (when it's really October) and the garlic will emerge sooner and grow more vigorously. Without this cold treatment, some garlics will grow timidly to avoid winter damage until they accumulate enough chilling in-situ. Here's an example: refrigerated on the right From 2010-06-16 Turban and asiatic garlics will start sprouting vigorously in the fall even without pre-chilling, which is why they don't store well - but is also why they succeed in tropical areas. They ripen first too, which makes them the most reliable in hot climates. I have a variety of 'warm climate' garlic for trade if you're interested, just send an email. We're a long way from planting time though, so no rush. ;)

In the original thread, Moni had written, "I was working in schools in the inner city, were a lot of poverty level families live. If you are in an lower income bracket, you can qualify for a free lunch. ALL breakfast are free. We had three tiers. Free, reduced, and full pay students. The free was the BIGGEST group." My nephew is now 29 years old, so it has been quite some time since he was in school. When he was in school, he qualified for free lunches because his mother is a disabled, low-income single mother. The "free lunch program" is still in existence today. If the girl in the original story truly cannot afford to pay for lunch, even the small amount of $1.70, she would qualify for the FLP and wouldn't need to be pleading for free food from any of the cafeteria workers. As JemDandy said (also in the original thread), "I don't think this was about a single $2 event. The management could not allow a precedent to develop that free food is available if you 'work the system'. If they allowed this for one student, they would have to permit it for any student else they could be cited for favoritism." Kids in middle school range in age from about 12 to about 15. They can be very clever. One kid can score a free meal by telling a cafeteria worker that he/she has no money, then that kid tells his/her friends, who try it the next day or a couple of days later, and pretty soon there will be a whole mess of kids pleading for food from the cafeteria workers. Don't think it wouldn't happen. SeniorGal had commented (also in the original thread), "Seems to me that we need to know WHY the child needed a free lunch." I completely agree. If the child is from a family that cannot afford to pay for a hot lunch, the child would qualify for the FLP and wouldn't need to be cajoling a cafeteria worker into giving food for free. If the child had lunch money at the beginning of the day, but spent it on junk from the vending machines, should she be rewarded for her poor choices? (Maybe she still had the money in her pocket but didn't want to spend it on lunch, preferring to save it for something else.) As had been pointed out by other folks, the food was not the cafeteria worker's to give away. Also, in the OP of this thread, Moni included, "Students are allowed to charge up to $11.00, but workers can still give them some food if they exceed that limit, according to reports." I'm wondering the child at the center of this controversy had already charged $11 worth of food and was still asking for more free food. Yes, it's a shame (and to some folks, a crime) to throw away extra food at the end of the day. But that's not something that's going to be changed unless the school district's policy changes. That's something to be brought up at school board meetings. And food that has been allowed to sit out for an extended period of time would be deemed unsafe and shouldn't be given away to anyone to consume. This is such a hot-button issue because it involves food and children. Would your reaction have been the same if the story had been about a Post Office employee giving free stamps to a customer because the customer couldn't otherwise mail her Christmas cards? A final comment... The cafeteria worker is described in the original article as a "server." The people who are serving/handling food cannot handle money (because money is filthy). So, there would be another worker who was the cashier. Also, the story says that the server "handed the girl the food and told her they'd take care of it in a minute." The server did not offer to pay for the food until after she had been busted by her supervisor. The implication in this is that the server handed the student the food, and then had the student go directly to a table to eat, without going past the cashier. The server didn't tell the cashier, "It's okay, I'll pay for it as soon as I can take a break and get to my purse," nor did the cashier take money out of her own pocket and give it to the child to take to the cashier. So that implies that the server knew what she was doing was against policy.

Go to the desert botanical garden in Phoenix (assuming its still open) and do some looking. That place really opened my eyes and made me realize living in Arizona or Nevada could be horticulurally satisfying. Botanical gardens are similar but better than singles bars. If you see something you like and you can't take that one home, you can get one or three younger duplicates of it from the store later. Be wary of water problems, trees want more and more water every year. My ignorant Midwestern guess is a staggered row of different height palms. They won't BLOCK the view entirely but will provide a break and might not get hacked by the power company.

Jellytoast, I am sure you thought I forgot to post the outcome . Today, the patio FINALLY got fixed...the right way, It has been quite a challenge to get here, but I did not give up! . The sales representativ from Landmark even came by and another expert and both agreed that the installation was incorrect. I tried to find another contractor to fix this since the original one did not seem to want to fix it, although the said he would pay for the fix. One guy came by and then never got back to me, so it was quite a hassle. When the Landmark representative offered to come by as he was planing a visit to my area, I asked the original guy if he could meet him. He explained him why the original installation and the fix were both wrong and how to fix it. It took some time until we were able to schedule some time. The Landmark guy (who has been very helpful) also recommended a newer type of acrylic joint sand that was hard to get here, so that delayed it a little. I had to micromanage the workers and one guy almost got fired. The third attempt didn’t start off perfect, even though I had even given them a written list with what needed to happen, but the next team listend when I told them what and how to do it. They finally used the spacers, the correct space between the pavers and the perfect sand (Techniseal HP Netxgel) that the Landmark guy approved. So far, I am now very happy with the result. I almost can’t believe it is finally over and I can enjoy my patio. I have to wait a couple of weeks to wash the haze off from the second attempt,, but I was shown that this would be easy.