If you love gardening, stay where you are. AZ is disastrous on plants in the summer time. Not to mention your water bill. I'm used to GA weather, and farm water where its cheap to water regardless of the seasons. Here in AZ anything green will hurt you!! Yes, they do grow spines, no matter what tree, what bush or what flower you decide you like. Hostas will not grow here, neither will moss unless you live in Williams, Show Low or Snowflake, some 4 hours north in the mountains. I love the hot weather!! It's better to be boiling than putting up with tornadoes and hurricanes. Once in a while it will get to 125 in the shade, but it cools off to a lovely 109-111, late July - Aug. Monsoon season is the best in summer, especially with the thunderstorms. However, if you are a gardener and value your lovely gardens, AZ is not a place for you. Retiring here - it's expensive - water is high, electricity is high (can only wash clothes at certain times for 1/2 the normal charge), trash is high, HOA dues are high, taxes are extremely high, food is out of sight tax wise and depending on where you call "home", there may or may not be services close to you. Here's an updated link for Cost of Living in Phx AZ

Dave, That's kind of what I was afraid of! I actually did grow picklers, I had four hills of those and only one of the armenian. I really like the armenian for a refrigerator pickle but that one plant has produced about ten times as much as the other cucumbers! I had never grown armenians before as I had only purchased them from the farmers market and I didn't realize how prolific they were! My other cucumbers have pretty much stopped producing. I was able to get about four pints of relish and four of slices before they pretty much quit. It just seems like every year I grow cucumbers that I never get enough to make actual pickles. I only get a couple every other day or so and I know that you are supposed to pickle them preferably within 24 hours so I never really get enough. How many hills should it take to get enough to make pickles? It just doesn't seem like it is worth the trouble to only make like a pint a day or something if you know what I mean. Once our heat hits things just go downhill from there. I never would have thought that I would have this much trouble growing cucumbers! I thought they were supposed to be easy! ;) Carly

A lot of those pepper are not any differen but just have different sounding names, like thai, korean, turkish, this and that. Case in point: "Aci Kirmizi" or "Aji Kirmizi" just means "RED CHILI" (Aci = Aji = chili, Kirmizi = red). Where did the Turks get their pepper from? Everything (in capsicum family) came out of the South America. @ Judo ... there are large communities of Armenians back in California. Do you have a relative over there ?

Many watermelons have set fruit. I'm not sure which kinds they are, but probably Santo Domingo Winter hybrids are among them. My most vigorous muskmelon plant, so far, is my Honeycomb x Torpeda F3. Germination was excellent on that one, too. The other Honeycomb types are different. A volunteer muskmelon is pretty vigorous, too, as is my Noir de Carmes x Metki Dark Green Serpent F2. The muskmelons I'm growing, this year, include these: * Honeycomb x Torpeda F3 (plants in two locations) * Honeycomb F2 * Honeycomb x Ashkahabad? F2 * Noir De Carmes x Metki Dark Green Serpent F2 * Charley's Pride offtype * Unknown volunteer * Orange Flesh Honeydew * Conoe Creek Colossal I'm not growing Kirkman, nor Torpeda, this year. Kirkman was pretty late, last year, and it didn't have a winter muskmelon type shelf-life. Absolutely all of my watermelons and muskmelons are from saved seeds (or else are volunteers), this year. Some of my peppers set fruit by a day or two ago. I'd have to look up what kinds they are, but there's at least one Pepperoncini type that has set fruit among them. Watermelons I'm growing include at least these: * Santo Domingo Winter * Santo Domingo Dark Green * Santo Domingo Brown Seeded * Navajo Red * Navajo Winter * Weeks NC Giant crosses * Wintermelon * Winter Queen * King Winter * Carolina Cross #183 I'm not growing Verona, nor the Congo types, this year (although it's possible they cross-pollinated something). Based on previous years, the earliest watermelons to get ripe might be Santo Domingo Winter, followed by Weeks NC Giant crosses, Santo Domingo Dark Green, and Carolina Cross #183, in no particular order. However, with probable cross-pollination, things are less sure than they otherwise might be. I expect the earliest muskmelon might be either the Honeycomb F2 or the Honeycomb x Torpeda F3, or possibly Noir de Carmes x Metki Dark Green Serpent F2.