Like some others have said, stick with cool weather crops in cool weather mostly. I grow these even in winter simply by covering the crops when it's going to freeze. They really have a head start in the spring so the growing season is longer. Varieties do matter. I've found the Black Seeded Simpson lettuce grows well. I've had tremendous luck growing Swiss Chard...almost year round...no problem. You also might try checking with some of the CSA's in your area because if it can be grown, they will grow it and know the varieties. Check out Barefoot Farmer. In one of his books he mentions varieties (his first one, I think).

Thanks nicki for your advice. But would you believe they are flying away this year, we had terrible soil down near the back fence also the land was vacant for 20 years, and in certain places we cannot grow anything, pretty sure the locals used it as the local dump including my lovely neighbours. You say dig down with a hand shovel O well I have too laugh, have you even tried digging down near bamboo, we tried dividing one last Spring and we did getting three good strong pieces off and they are flying away too,but it took a bent rake and a huge crowbar with hubby doing the bar bit while I was pulling the rope we tied to it. But I think the secret to my success at long last was the fertlizing with lawn food like richard said,I do them every six weeks from November till about April so it has made a big difference, they are about 3mts ( 10ft ) high now and still reaching for the sky and getting very bushy. I think the time I planted mine was wrong too being winter anyway they are right now. Cheers. MM.

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

Update: Eucalyptus deglupta that I raised several dozen of and only this past winter I planted 6 of them into the ground at an elevation of around 150 m above sea level, into a poor "soil". They did not grow too large in their pots over the past 5 years. After clearing an acre or so of shrubby woods with an excavator I was struggling to find some soil to purchase in order to cover the field. The soil I covered it with by just a barely a foot or so is very poor and has a lot of volcanic "gravel" in it mostly, stones and clay. It is dug up from down deep so it has got no organic matter yet. Finally the 6 x "Arcoiris" (Rainbow Eucalyptus) are in the ground and are slowly growing. Some showing deep, red foliage and some green foliage. The bark is still mostly light brown with some opened up patches of light green. They should show more colour when the trunks grow to at least 10-15 cm thickness if they will have tropicals colours here at all. Will see how their bark will look after several more years, whether all brownish and light green or will show some more tropical colours such as orange, red and especially blue. I will post an update then and now here are some photos of the pot-grown ones after 5 years (they grow very slowly in the pots): Anyone growing these in Portugal or Spain please post up close photos of the bark of larger E.d. (Eucalypto arcoiris) trees if possible.