Kay, you might want to check that ID on No Count Blues. I think it's supposed to be a late bloomer. I got mine as a bonus from Schreiner's and it looks different. My friend Jean just had two irises from Schreiner's bloom- and one of her Bonus irises, Grateful Red, is Lady Friend. Owyhee Desert turned out to be Thornbird. So Schreiner's is not immune to making mistakes, and maybe my No Count Blues is the wrong one. Your Paul Black is a stunner, but my eye keeps being drawn to the magenta iris- is that Sheer Ecstacy? It's so vibrant. I love your shot of Classic Look. Thanks for the clump shots. They make such a difference! Renee

Ezzirah, Why Subartic 25? Because it sets fruit early? Or because it is a shorter DTM? For fall tomatoes, the occurrence of fruitset is heavily dependent on and controlled by the temperatures. The factor that prevents fruitset is the high daytime/night temperaatures. Once the temps drop back down into the range where pollination/fertilization occur, anything you plant that is large enough to bear fruit will start blooming and setting fruit. If you're thinking that it will set fruit better in cooler weather as fall progresses, then yes, it will. That doesn't mean the fruit will mature or will taste good. I used to try to prolong the fall harvest as long as possible, but have to say that I really don't care that much for the fruit that mature in late autumn or early winter. Flavor of tomatoes is strongly affected by heat and intense sunlight. Fall tomatoes that mature in cooler temps and in shorter days with less intense sunlight never develop the same, rich full flavor you get from summertime tomatoes. Some years I will overwinter fall tomatoes and peppers in pots I drag into the garage at night. Is is worthwhile? Probably not, The fruit stay small, mature slowly and taste only perhaps the tiniest bit tastier than grocery store tomatoes. I'd rather grow tomatoes chosen for flavor or productivity. than for their DTMs. Most of the early-season, short-DTM varieties I've tried have been a serious disappointment whether grown in spring or fall. Often, they do not produce any earlier than a tomato variety with a 75-day DTM. For me, Early Girl is never early, no matter what the seed catalog descriptions say. I still grow "her" but we call her "Late Girl" around here. So,I'm just saying don't pin your hopes on that variety and then you won't be too disappointed in how it performs. AVERAGE LAST FROST DATE: You'll probably never have your real, actual last frost in any given year on your average last frost date. My average last frost date is March 28th, but what we have seen in reality is a last frost as early as the end of February and (for the last 4 years) as late as May 3rd or 4th. What is a gardener to do? Well, remind yourself that the ave last date means that in 50% of the years, you'll have your ave last frost occur on or before your ave last frost date, and in the other 50% of the years, you'll have it occur after the ave. last frost date. The NWS's Average Last Frost Date is based, I believe, on 30-year-averages and we cannot look at a relatively brief number of years and believe our ave last frost date should be shifted. In this part of the country, where our middle name is "erratic weather", we just have to work around the erratic weather as well as we can. I make planting decisions based on the soil temps/air temps relative to whatever I'm planting needs/tolerates as well as the 10-day forecast. Then, I cross my fingers and hope that if a so-called "late" snow or frost or sleet hits, I'll be able to cover up whatever is in the ground that will need protection from the weather. Some years I have put tomato plants in the ground in the first week in March and haven't lost them to a late freeze. Other years I've planted them in mid-April or late April only to have them damaged by an unexpected May frost. Really, only the first year was unexpected---our forecast low was 50 and we went to 32. After that, I expect it...and it keeps happening too. Nowadays, I just expect a late frost at my house in May, and it is so bizarre, but you have to deal with what actually happens, not what any statistic tells you is likely to occur or not occur. So, take all weather data as a "suggestion" and not as a "requirement" so to speak because the weather itself is going to do whatever it is going to do and, for all the capabilities of the NWS, the weather still manages to do unexpected things at times. You just have to be able to anticipate the odd late freeze or late s nowfall and prepare your plants for it. SELF-SUFFICIENCY: Anything you grow, even if you only grow 1 thing, makes you more self-sufficient. You really cannot expect to start gardening one year and be totally self-sufficient in 2 or 4 or 5 years. It takes a lot of time and experience to work your way up to ever-increasing self-sufficiency. You can do it in relatively small spaces and some great books have been recommended that discuss how it can be done. However, only you can figure out what works for you. Don't try to do too much too quickly. It is always better to start smaller and work your way up. When selecting what I'll plant in our precious garden space (when it takes tons of amending to make the soil worth growing something in, you don't want to waste an inch of space), I focus on what we like to eat most, what we think tastes 1000% better when homegrown and what is hard to find for good prices at the grocery store. I'll use Sugar Snap Peas as an example. A couple of years ago, we had a banner crop and I wondered what it would cost to buy what we'd raised. We harvested about 35 lbs. of Sugar Snap Peas (there were more than that, but I didn't weigh the ones I picked and ate while working in the garden, so can't say how many more) that year. When I checked at our local Wal-Mart that year, organically-raised Sugar Snap Peas were selling for $3.79 per 10-oz. package. So, as you can see, our crop had a high dollar value but that isn't why we grew them. We grew them because we love to eat them. Lettuce is the opposite. For the space it requires and because of the shortness of the season, it doesn't pay off very well in terms of your harvest being worth a whole lot of money---but I grow it anyway just for the sheer pleasure of being able to put a salad on the table where every ingredient in it came from our garden. When space is a consideration, some crops don't make sense---like pumpkins, which take up a whole lot of space for a relatively small return. (Not that fresh pumpkins aren't great, but rather that I calculate what else could be grown in the same space, and the answer generally is "tons of stuff".) Instead of growing mostly ornamental orange pumpkins, I grow mostly buff-colored winter squash that are vining and can climb up into the trees, thereby using up less ground space. It is always fun to watch people driving by trying to figure out what kind of giant buff-colored fruit are growing on the tree just outside my garden fence. Growing your own herbs is very sustainable. Fresh herbs are high-priced in stores. They aren't even all that fresh and you'll spend a couple of bucks for a couple of sprigs of not-so-fresh mint, when one mint plant that costs a couple of bucks as a small seedling in spring will supply you with mint for the rest of your life. So, I think herbs are a great investment, but only if you actually use them. You can greatly increase the productivity of your limited space by growing everything you can vertically on trellises. I even grow melons, including small watermelons, and even very large muskmelons on trellises. You can grow a lot more in less space with clever planning. Some people like to plant bush varieties of cucumbers, for example, in small garden because they take up less space. But, if you put vining cucumbers on a trellis, you'll get a larger harvest from the trellised plants most years than from the bush plants. I'd suggest you focus on mastering growing whatever crops are more important to you---start with a handful---and then add 1 or 2 new ones each year. There's a big difference in planting something and growing it, and in planting it and getting the maximum yield, so always work on ways to increse your yield each year. You'll be surprised how much higher your yields become as you gain experience and as your soil gets better every year too because you are continually amending it. Before we moved here, I was an urban homesteader with a yard that was almost completely shaded. I still managed to grow a surprisingly large harvest of tomatoes, peppers, squash, beans, melons and a few herbs in a tiny 8' x 10' patch of fairly sunny space on the north side of the garage, and a little strip of 6 tomato plants alongside the driveway. I just grew what I could, and didn't fret over what I couldn't grow. I also rebuilt my brother's country garden one year by laboriously digging out tons of rock, building raised beds and filling those beds with a purchased compost/topsoil blend and planting and maintaining the garden. I took care of his chickens, ducks and geese, and ignored his silly goats. However, my desire to grow more and to keep chickens ourselves(not just for eggs, but because they produce manure for the compost pile and eat lots of bugs) is one of the main reasons we decided to move "to the country". He would have let me "play farmer" forever on his land, but I didn't want to be his gardener for the rest of my life,lol, I wanted a garden that was all my own. Planting biointensively, using intercropping to maximize space and doing continual succession planting help a person to get more harvest out of the space they have. All of those techniques work, but they work best if you also are working to improve the soil every year. The better your soil gets, the higher your yields. HEIRLOOMS AND LANDRACES: Open-pollinated heirloom varieties grow the same as anything else. You will see heirloom seeds right on the seed racks along with newer hybrids and there are companies that specialize in selling them. In addition to the company Helen listed, I like Victory Seeds, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. When I first "discovered" heirloom varieties in the 1990s, I was so excited. Then, when I started looking at them, many of those heirloom varieties were the ones we'd grown in my family's garden when I was a kid---and in some cases my dad still was growing them. I was expecting all these incredible, exotic heirlooms and it was just the same stuff we'd always grown. It was sort of like the joke was on me! However, over time I did find more and more unusual heirlooms that even my dad hadn't heard of and didn't know existed. Several years back, I introduced several of my gardening neighbors to black tomatoes (they thought I was trying to give them rotten tomatoes, lol). One of those guys was here today checking out the greenhouse and he pointed to the table of tomato seedlings and said "Got any of those black Russian tomatoes there?" He likes them not because of the color, but because of the superior flavor, and so do I. However, in my garden, most O-P tomatoes produce less pounds of fruit per plant than most hybrid tomatoes produce per plant, so I grow both hybrids and heirlooms. There is nothing wrong with that. Monsanto is evil: No argument from me, but even though we may disapprove of their tactics, it is a free country and we have a free enterprise system so they have every right to run their business as they choose. And we have every right to voice our opinion by not buying their products. That is how the system works. Compost: It is not an "either or" proposition. OK, so you cannot make enough. Fine. Then focus on doing what you can. If all you do is mulch your beds heavily every year with 4 to 6" of mulch, then that mulch will break down every year and enrich your soil. Just today, my DH was working in the flower border bed that surrounds the garden and he commented on how wonderfully loose and rich that soil is, finally(!), after being amended for 14 years now. There are many, many sources of compostable materials. Many of us "collect" bags of autumn leaves put out by the roadside as trash. I'd rather pick up a bag of already raked and gathered leaves than have to rake up all those leaves myself. Some cities see municipal compost. Some tree trimming companies will dump a load of chipped wood on your property for you. It saves them from having to pay to dispose of it at a dump or a composting facility. Sometimes you can find horse manure, cow manure, rabbit manure or old straw or bedding mixed with manure, or old spoiled hay just by checking your area's FreeCycle or Craigslist websites. Last year a friend give me over 200 bales of spoiled hay which is partly being used as mulch and partly being used as food for the compost pile. You can bet I'll be giving his family tomatoes all summer long in return. We have several ranching neighbors who are always telling us we're welcome to come over and shovel out their stalls and collect all the manure we want. You'd be surprised what may come your way when you let people know what you're searching for or what you need for your garden. Planting green manure or cover crops is a great way to improve your soil without building compost. This year my green manure crop is buckwheat. Over the winter it was triticale. Where there is a will, there is a way. Just make whatever compost you can, and add to that by growing green manure crops, cover crops, etc. Because I want to be a "giver" and not just a "taker", some years I give all my corn stalks to a friend instead of feeding the corn stalks to the compost pile. He feeds the corn stalks to his cattle in the lean years. It is a two-way street because he often gives me hay that is too spoiled to feed his cattle or manure from his barn. Want to make a gardening friend happy? Show up at their house with a trailer full of manure for their garden! lol I have been amazed at how much I've been given by friends for my compost pile, but I am in a rural area where such materials are more common than they are "in the city". Still horse stables exist in town too, etc., and there are ways to supplement whatever compost you're able to make. While I maintain a large compost pile, my favorite way to compost is to add mulch to my garden plantings and my pathways nonstop. I add something almost every week, mainly straw or hay or grass clippings. That mulch breaks down nonstop and enriches the soil beneath it. One of the very best ways to enrich your soil is one of the easiest. Just put a layer of cardboard on the ground--either in beds between plants or in the pathways, and put grass clippings over it. Earthworms will be attracted to that cardboard and, as they eat it and other stuff, they excrete earthworm castings that enrich your soil. It is astounding how much putting down cardboard changes your soil, and yet it is really easy to do. As a lifelong gardener, I'd like to add that for me the whole gardening experience is not about growing whatever food and flowers I can. It is so much more than that. While the ultimate goal might seem to be the harvest of fruits, veggies, herbs and flowers, or the sheer enjoyment of planting things and watching them grow, for me what it really comes down to is the entire process involved in gardening on a day to day basis. At our house, gardening isn't just a hobby--it is the sort of lifestyle we have chosen to live. It is about being out in the sun and the wind enjoying the time and enjoying having the birds, butterflies, bees, etc around. It is about doing something that is fun. It is about enjoying the entire journey, and not just worrying about what the yield will be like when we reach our final destination---the harvest. It also is about making memories. Inside my soul resides a whole host of garden memories--of time spent gardening with family members and neighbors who no longer reside on this earth with us, memories of our son and nieces and nephews digging in the garden, planting seeds with their small hands, taking huge delight in watering and weeding and eating what they grew themselves in "their" garden. I have memories of making homemade peach ice cream with peaches we grew ourselves, of making a year's worth of salsa using veggies grown in our garden, memories of harvesting lemons from our own little lemon tree....I could go on forever and ever. With most things that we humans do, people will say "you get out of it whatever you put into it" and, while I generally agree with that statement, when it comes to the gardening lifestyle I've lived simply forever, I feel like the garden has given me so very much more than I've ever given it. I have a little cross-stitch sampler that has hung in my kitchen for well over a decade and it says "I'd Rather Be In The Garden". It is so very, very true. Dawn

Looks like a lot of work, but what fun. When I was a kid, my dad put a village under our tree every year. He would get this sweeping compound that was green for the grass and used sand to make dirt roads. We had the old big Lionel trains that would go around the tree. He did this every year on Christmas Eve after we went to bed, He'd be up until four or five in the morning getting it done. Your village brought back great memories. Thank you for sharing. Love your little pooch. By the way, my dad's nickname was "Buddy". This post was edited by georgysmom on Sun, Jan 13, 13 at 0:01

Thank you. I fertilize spring, summer, fall with a good granular citrus food and water once or twice a week in that time depending on the temperature. I water in the winter every other week if we don't get rain. It's on a slight slope which helps with drainage as we have gritty clay soil, a mix of clay, silt and decomposing granite. And I leave all the leaves that fall under the tree as mulch. I lost the two avocados I planted last year. I think they had issues when I got them, they were on clearance. (for a reason obviously, lol) But even though they didn't last, they did bloom a lot and this tree in the pic had a ton of fruit because of it. So I've been wanting to id this tree so to know if it's A or B flowers. I just want to get one more avocado tree for the other's replacement, so I need to know which to get, A or B.