Glad to hear that the news isn't all bad, Denninmi. Believe me, after my nearly non-garden in 2011, I understand your frustration. Winners & losers here too. Losers: - Garlic. The early warmup, followed by months of freeze/thaw, killed half of my garlic due to frost heave. The remainder turned brown in the heat much too early, and the bulbs are much smaller than normal. Looks like only about 1/3 of a normal harvest. Silver lining to this dark cloud... I found out that one of my garlics is drought tolerant! "Special Idaho" has a very strong root system, and the bulbs pulled themselves 4-5" deep. It was the only hardneck to do well, even surrounded by thistle. - Peas. I've been trying to select for all-purple pods, from a genetically diverse line of parsley-leaved peas. That's hard to do, though, when there are no pods. Same for one of my soup peas, which has tall vines, but no pods. The plants are alive, but at this point, looks like they are a total loss. Another soup pea had nearly 75% die-off. Silver lining: one of my other soup peas, "Vantana Matar", has done well regardless of the heat & is absolutely loaded with pods. - Runner beans. They do not like heat. I planted two this year, and one is completely dead. The other has made a recent revival, and is flowering now. It remains to be seen if it will still be able to produce pods in the time remaining. My common beans started out as losers. They were all seriously stunted, between the heat, lack of rain, and the fact that I was two weeks late getting mulch down. Some of the pole beans have recovered, and are now climbing & blooming. Others are still stunted, and apparently will not fully recover. Notable mentions: "Dolloff", which recovered early and is climbing vigorously & setting pods; and the heirloom bush "Wood's Mountain Crazy Bean" (from a member of the Bean Forum) which while stunted initially, has really come on strong. When I saw the heat in the long-term forecast, I put in more hot-weather crops, and that has worked out well. Eggplant, bitter melon, and okra are all producing heavily. Soybeans are huge. The pole limas are growing rampantly, and since I put in 75 feet of row, this could be their best year ever. My tomatoes & peppers are behind where they should be, but the plants are incredibly healthy, and setting fruit in large numbers. After several bad years for peppers, I am really optimistic about getting seed this year... and making gallons of salsa. I can't say enough about hot weather greens this year. Water spinach, Egyptian spinach, and moringa LOVE this heat. I planted sweet potato slips (for greens) 3 weeks ago, and already had the first picking. All of them are producing almost faster than I can pick them. Fortunately, DW has friends who take up the slack. ;-) One more note of interest. I usually cover my C. pepo and C. maxima squashes as soon as I plant them, to protect them from SVB. This year I got behind, and couldn't get them covered in time. When it was obvious that they were infected, I covered many of the vines with soil so they would grow additional roots. Normally, this would have been a losing battle. This year, however, the vines are growing so rapidly that the SVB can't kill them! Many of the vines are rooted along their length, and are 20 feet long - and still growing. This isn't over yet, but it appears that given enough heat & water to encourage rapid growth, and if the vines are buried early, they can survive the borers. Over all, thanks to irrigation, I think this will be a better than average year. I had more losses in abnormally cold or wet years, when flooding & disease really took their toll.

Oh my gosh, I am so touched by these responses. Well I have missed you all too! Development work is not so bad...but there's less time for other things, and when faced with a free afternoon, with a lot of lavenders to prune and plant...I'll take the garden every time. I am sure that once I get the hang of this new work, I'll start posting a lot more again. I will take photos asap too. Thing is, we had some wind "events" in early May, and the double row of red Austins (Dark Lady and Wllm Shakespeare 2000) had to be pruned very closely because of the damage to the new growth. Not much worth photographing at the moment...although some of the irises are wonderful. Carol, you are great....I will consider the forum outreach! That's great. Everyone's welcome to visit! Luanne did already. Rosefolly, thanks for the CRM recommendation. I never feel more then maladroit gardener than when it comes to Austins. My Evelyns are about 20" high, year three...and I saw this massive thing at the Descanso gardens here on Monday, must have been 7' high, and the flowers.... Bill...okay, this spring, Felicite put out a great flush for the second year in a row. It is a great rose, even here with non-winters. Mme. Plantiers did nicely too, even though the drought and stuff fried the blooms. Mme. Plantier is one of the few roses here that the scent "wafts"...amazing. Love it. Mme. Hardy gave me 3 flowers, all the rest of the growth was 'blind'...no flower buds. Maybe it doesn't get cold enough here, don't know what's the problem. I'm just going to prune her as if she bloomed this next week, following David Stone's marvelous advice. It's okay if she doesn't bloom every year, I have her in a space where the shrub is nice, and getting a flush is pure serendipitous grace. Florence, you're a bright spot too...thanks for your kindness. windeaux, Roberto Capucci is a very good plant. The flowers are enormous and the petals must be very thick, because they don't fry, and I have this in a place that gets blasted. I got it from RU, and I must say, all the plants I've gotten from them have been amazing. Randy, we also have Golden Celebration and Reine des Violettes in common...:-) Pretty soon RdV will be in my 'doing well' list. I have noticed more flushes on it each year. jbfoodie; you are going to love SdPN. It is a great great rose. I have two here, one from Vintage and the other from RU. Both are bloom machines, good for picking and have that old fashioned "Lux Soap" smell to my nose. Remember those orange octagonal bars they used to make a million years ago? Jerome

I'm still working on my tomato list for this year, and ran across this one Bonnie Select VFFNTA - determinate If any of you guys have tried it, please take a minute and tell me what you think. All ads sound wonderful, you guys will always tell me the truth. Thanks again Corrie

Greetings. I also have no specific advice for you, however I can tell that this is a huge ongoing disappointment for you. Very unfortunate for sure. I would like to offer several observations from my own experiences. It seems to me that this general attitude from your stepdaughter is not specifically related to your "Step" relationship with her, rather it is likely due to her poor attitudes and values/priorities towards life and family in general. This negative attitude could also be largely due to her own personality traits and the broad family dynamics that all families experience. I have seen this negative ignoring attitude situation with grown children directed towards their intact family biological parents, and certainly towards their siblings. Parenting is an inherently flawed process, and mature adult children will rise above the past, forgive their parents (step or not) and work to build good family relationships, if that is important to them. This ignoring behavior from the stepdaughter is probably not about you specifically, however you make a very convenient target. One thing I had to teach myself is that when I give a card or gift to someone, I would simply enjoy my internal feeling of love by giving the gift, and to not expect any loving response in return. A loving act in return would just be some unexpected and wonderful "icing on the cake," if you know what I mean. If you don't truly enjoy the giving of the gifts and cards to your stepdaughter, then there is no point in continuing to give them. You might leave this card/gift duty up to her other parents and just go on giving to the ones that will actively participate in life with you in a positive way. Leave the door open for your stepdaughter to mature, however life is short and I say enjoy the loving relationships you have with your other family and friends, and let stepdaughter chart her own course without your concern. Good luck! I hope that my comments help in some small way.