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!

Hey Martin! I enjoyed your video debut a lot and loved hearing your Yankee accent. Gives me a dose of "Up Home" talk I need every so often to keep from getting homesick. I hope you will make more videos and maybe one with you singing to your fig trees. That would be great. noss

Melati Your gardens are absolutely beautiful. How many hosta do you have in your collection? It looks like a park and you should be very proud of you creation. Love the idea of the video even if I don't know all the names of your hosta

I will have the post nearly complete, then add the photo, and it's sideways. At that point I would like to be able to delete the photo from the post, then try rotating it before I try again to include it. But I haven't figured out how to do that. Once an image is included, the only way I've been able to eliminate it is to abandon the post altogether and start over. I'm posting from a MacBook Pro. I'm able to delete photos inserted here by right clicking on the photo and hitting delete.