John Just note that your cuke vines are likely to go down the other side of that fence and most of the fruit will grow there. Do you plan to share them with your neighbor (if that's someone else's back yard)? :-) It looks like you have four plants in that container. To avoid a concentrated vine "spillage" over the other side of the fence, I think I'd move the container farther away from the fence and make a teepee arrangement of some sort to support the vines. Below is a very simple kind of string trellis that might work for your setup if you can find 3 or 4 tall stakes to surround your container. Here is a link that might be useful: String Cucumber Trellis

I'd like to know as well. The fruit trees that I have chosen only require 150 chill hours or so and I get fruit. My scarlet beauty plum was loaded with fruit this year. There's no way Brooksville could come close to 400 chill hours. Can someone list low chill varieties of kiwi. Also, what about when it gets down in the teens and twenties ... are there varieties that folks are having success with concerning those issues? I want to grow kiwi fruit so badly, but I have killed far too many plants and don't want to add to the list. lol I agree Ken ... Lowes (and Walmart) is so horrible with that. I am always trying to tell people in the store that we don't have enough chill hours for a particular tree or that those varieties of avocado will not survive the winter. It's too bad the big box stores don't have educated buyers for the region they are in.

I just wanted to post a follow-up on my moonflower attempt. I did plant in the peat pellets, but all my babies became very leggy and had declining health until all died. I direct sowed in I think April or May, and I constructed a trellis from twine on my carport post. (some help from boyfriend) My moonflowers are now about 8 feet tall, still no flowers, though. But I did fertilize my yard and I think they may have gotten some 36-6-6 on them. Which would definetly explain the vine and no flowers situation. All I had to do to get them to climb was place the growing tip near the twine and they twined and took off upward pretty much on thier own. I have been very pleased with the direct sowing method and I think they did much better this way. I'll let yall know if and when I get flowers! --april--

If you want really tall tomato plants (vines), look for ones labeled as indeterminate. You can find cherries, but also plum tomatoes and beefsteak tomatoes that are indeterminate. They are the only kind I grow since they can usually outgrow any foliage diseases that effect the lower leaves on the plants. You will need to fasten the vines to the trellis. We use cotton or wool fabric strips (old socks, tshirts, sheets,etc) because at the end of season you can cut everything off the trellis together and put it in the compost. Manmade fibers, plastic, or metal would have to be separated before adding to the compost. Determinate tomatoes are the shorter bush type. I have grown both melons and squash up wire trellises. I used old t-shirts or stockings as slings and just tied them to the trellis or else picked the squash when it was still quite small. With chain link you will need to be sure that the newly forming melon/squash isn't positioned between the wires as it will get stuck as it expands. I have also grown vining squash sprawling across the ground. They weave through the bottom of the tomatoes growing nearby, but could smother shorter plants like beets and carrots. If you will be growing them across the ground, be aware that mowing that area of your lawn won't be possible (though I don't know how much lawn grows in a TX summer.) Mine often goes into the field that borders my garden, but since that only gets mowed a couple of times a year, DH just waits until after frost for the final mowing. If you are going to grow peas, the usual suggestion is to plant as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring as they don't like hot weather. I don't know if it is too late for you now, but if it is you can try a fall crop. Check the days to harvest and figure out whether a fall or spring crop would work best. Beans can be grown bush form or vine form like squash and tomatoes, so check the package to be sure that you get what you want. Enjoy the garden, and I'd love to hear progress reports.