Lisa, I've always appreciated the concept and practice of square foot gardening. It has always been a little to formal and precise for me though. I prefer the concept of edible landscape or in my case, edible jungle. You simply have to be aware of how large each will grow and how compatible different plants are with each other. If you noticed, the beans and onions have their own bed. I did plant the bell peppers in spaces that otherwise may not have been utilized in the same bed. Many say beans and onions aren't compatible, because onions are nitrogen hogs while beans produce nitrogen. They are right. I had to give the beans extra nitrogen because the onions were basically stealing the beans nitrogen or at least causing insufficient nitrogen to be available for the beans. Ted

Now Cornell has been looking at organic apple production in the northeast for a while and you can see what they say about it on the link. Michigan State has also researched it quite a bit. Still not generally considered an economically viable way to go in the humid regions because price does not compensate adequately for cost- unless you can develop a free-spending clientele. The problem is there is a glut of organic fruit being grown in the west where there is little or no rain during the growing season so costs are low and productivity high because of much lower disease and pest pressure. The recession has reduced demand on organic food a great deal so a large portion of western grown organic fruit is being sold as conventional for lesser profit. It really is not very expensive to ship apples via truck thousands of miles so the math is not in your favor. Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell spray guidelines

WOW is all I can say ladies! Those look BEAUTIFUL, Annette, that's pretty much the look I'm going for. I don't need anything fancy, the house is a habitat for humanity box, I don't care for the style and am not too worried about it standing standing for any more than 10 more years...I just want to be sure whatever on it is sturdy, because it will get HUGE back there. I can build something like you have piece by piece myself. My concern with Marylou's for this area is the strength. I need something ironclad because I'm loading this wall with plants! I figure it's my one chance to do it because the husband doesn't like climbers on wood siding of our "keeper" buildings :) I am however planning on making a frame with the wire in it to wrap around our driveway water tank, exactly what MaryLou has but with bent wood. This week my job will be to create a new wire trellis for some variegated confederate jasmine to screen the back plant shed. Again, a temporary fix (we are planning on tearing down the shed and going up along the back of our house for a master suite and double deck that will overlook the eventual back yard garden)... I am finding that I can deal better with the idea of "temporary gardens" than I once could. Once I would put in plants and be terrified that anything would happen to them. Now I only wish to keep a sliver to keep them going of something should happen to them. I guess after the tornadoes, flooding, droughts I've learned some mental survival skills :)

The scientific name for coral honeysuckle AKA trumpet honeysuckle is Lonicera sempervirens. It is a native and nonscented, but it can get large and heavy, so you would want to plan to prune to maintain size and to use a more robust trellis, most likely one made of metal. Mine retains some of its leaves in really mild winters, but it isn't lovely in winter by any stretch of the imagination. If you want to use a bamboo, use a medium height clumping bamboo rather than running bamboo in pots since they may not survive well outdoors in pots in Boston, even the hardiest types. They may get some die-back in particularly cold winters. Or choose a type of tall, narrow evergreen shrub and plant several, with the trellis as a backdrop.