And what to do when I get there I suppose?

There's a guy in red who runs the place -- he'll tell you what to do. I'm an amateur compared to Satan.

Today must be Satan day. I've been doing a whole Popcorn is from Satan joke over in feelskinny's journal.

Popcorn is from Satan. How is that a joke?

If water tasted like popcorn I wouldn't drown if thrown into the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

I can't stand the smell. Fire and brimstone.

All I can smell is popcorn.

Been at this gardening thing for awhile in California, had to quit because of health problems that are now solved by LC. Now I am in Texas and getting started again, having to learn how to do it here.

Growing tomatoes in the plastic buckets that you hang upside down? Best thing I ever did. Don't have to stake, little effort to watering, keeps my cat Kipper out of them (my avatar is baby Kip). He used to ambush the other cats from the tomatoes and at 22 pounds he would crush a few plants. Keeps the cats out of the "litter box" that a raised garden can be. In CA had to have raised gardens with screen underneath because of gophers.

As for varieties, just Google heirloom tomatoes. The number of varieties is amazing. Better tasting than anything in the big box grocery and it agribusiness tomato. We loved the zebras and the brandywines, sweet slice cucumbers, and an Italian bell pepper I don't remember the name of.

Second best thing I ever did for the garden was to spend about $40 (on eBay as I remember) to buy my first Contech Scarecrow which is a battery operated motion activated sprinkler. In CA, just buried the PVC pipe and attached the Scarecrow. That really kept the cats, dogs, and coyotes out. Havahart makes a similar device. Amazon sells both and I think the Scarecrow has a lot more and a lot higher rating. Were it just my cats bothering the garden, I could have turned the water off after awhile, but there were critters at night.

Just some ideas. With gas prices boosting the price of food, home gardening would be great for our personal finances and our health. Oh, and I just "lurve" Gardener's Supply.

Oh no! Is that as in, "The people down the hall keep making popcorn and I have to smell it all day long"?

Because that would suck.

I GET THE POINT ALREADY GUYS...

You Tube video explaining how to grow salad leaves in a labour saving way.
Salad Leaves for All Seasons with Charles Dowding
He uses containers or raised beds. The beds are 4ft across and (in his book) he shows how you can easily make hoops out of wire or polypipe to put netting over to keep the cats off, or to cover with fleece to protect from frost/pests.

I've just set up my beds and am trying to see if it works just picking a few outside leaves from my lettuce/salads each week to try to keep them going for 3months.

There are other video's on Youtube explaining how to simply make a raised bed from timber. Dowding just covers the ground with a carpet and when the weeds have died off he uses horse manure as a base and compost as the growing medium, no dig, no soil, no weeds, no work.

I should have said that Spinach and Chard are probably the easiest leaves to grow. My last years plants are just about to run to seed and the new plants are ready to take over. The Celariac survived the winter and has also been useful. Will grow these again.