Thanks again everyone! I'm inspired to expand, and to try to become more and more self sufficient. I will most likely cultivate the 900 sq ft area outside the cage in the fall or next spring. Socks, right now I've been sharing basil and Armenian cucumbers with friends as those are incredibly prolific and we are having trouble keeping up. As for the other vegetables, my family and I will have no problem eating everything - there are 6 of us and we're all vegetarian. Canyonsister, I started all my tomatoes, peppers, basil, and eggplant by seed indoors at the beginning of January. I then started all the cucumbers, squash, cantaloupes, watermelons in mid February. I transplanted everything in mid March and directed seeded beans, more squash and cucumbers. In April I direct seeded okra, tepary beans and more cantaloupe. With heavy mulching, close planting, and shade cloth most things are holding up very well to the 100+ degree heat right now. In the winter, I wasn't as well organized but I did have a small selection of greens (kale, broccoli, rapini, arugula, lettuce etc) as well as beets, carrots, spring onions, peas, bok choy etc. You can start seeding the fall/winter vegetables as early as August and September if you provide some protection from the heat incase it stays in the 90's all the way up to November as it did this last season. Basically, you can seed, grow and harvest something in Phoenix year round!

Thanks, lefleur1 and thyme2dig, I'm glad you enjoy it. Freezengirl, sometimes that happens to me when I'm watching videos on youtube. If I try it again later, it usually will load correctly. I'm glad you found the second video! I just uploaded it on Saturday. It's more of the same but a little different. :)

Am I the only person here who was a 'slower reader'? I grew up in what was technically my Grandfather's house. He and my Father had moved into it on the death of my grandmother in the 1930's and had been looked after/waited on by a housekeeper. During WWII my Father married and brought my Mother to live there . . . and boy did she resent Grampy . . . and being told by neighbours that she was lucky to have a roof over her head, as though she had been rescued from the gutter. So, I was often left with Gramps, who between sleeping and looking at the sports pages would read to me. My Grandmother who worked in a US book store/library often sent American books, so I had several little Golden books plus a few early 'Ladybird' books. I loved listening to stories but never once did it occur to me to try and read them myself. Reading was just something that Grown-ups did. I really struggled at school with reading and can still remember the incomprehension when given a card with pictures on it. A cat, a dog a doll etc. With the card came a small tin containing individual words. Of course the idea was to match the words to each picture. This I could not do because I never recognised any of the words! It appeared no-one (certainly not the teacher a kindly young woman) knew how to help me. Spelling tests were equally dreaded. I always go nothing out of ten and was late home to lunch as I had to write out my many mistakes five times each. I remember the 'correct' words were written on the board but I never knew which was which! As we were never given words to learn or take home and practice, the tests must have been hit and miss anyway. 'Reading' took place in small groups and I was so useless the 'best reader' leading the group would kindly let me off my turn for which everyone was grateful. It wasn't until I was probably nearly seven and had received a copy of What Katie Did for a Christmas present from US Granny, that my Father, not a 'family man' by nature, and bored with all this quality time told me to read the book to him. He sat me on the floor gripping me with his knees and soon found it was quite beyond me. I clearly remember him turning to my Mother and saying 'Why can't she read?" Mother probably answered "I don't know, that's why we send her to school, shouldn't they be teaching her?" She most likely went on "Well I was reading Scott and Dickens when I was seven/eight." Our parents loved to tell us how good they were at 'stuff' and how useless we were! That seemed to be the Damascene moment. It still took me some years to be able to cope with a 'proper' book, but fear (of my Father) was the starting point. And I still don't know what it was that Katie did. ;-)

I was just reading this thread, and noted someone suggested an electric fence rather than a chain. I'd like to agree with the electric fence... but sometimes even if they've been trained to stay inside, some times something will call them to go out. My sister in law lost her dog that way. He'd been let out to do his business, but something must have attracted him enough to bounce past that fence. He went missing. My brother found him a day later, hit by the train that runs nearby. That dog was an amazing dog - also a pit bull mix. I'm wondering if a run would be a good solution, give the dog a chance to move around more without getting into a situation like the wonderful one I just wrote about. (That dog had been indoors about 95% of the time.)