That is good to know about the deer netting. Are you just catching big rattlesnakes or will it work on copperheads? Do you find them dead or have to kill them? I am interested in the herbs mentioned. I like rosemary on chicken, herbs in turkey stuffing, and cilantro in salsa, but I am very ignorant of how to use herbs. I would like to know how you all use them. For some reason many people dislike cats. Also there are discussions on the morning show about being a cat person or a dog person. I am an animal person and appreciate both. I don't expect a cat to act like a dog. Both are lots of trouble, I spent most of today fixing the radio fence that shocks my dogs through their collars when they cross it. There is a big hungry German Shepherd that is either lost or dumped. I don't need another dog and don't want it to eat my cats or Honey a small dog. It is probably a good dog but it is trouble for me. I have much more trouble with my dogs every day. The cats are no problem. I have wood rats making nests everywhere when I go without a cat. I know people in town have to put up with other peoples' animals and children. It is easier to take if you love them and they belong to you.

I would plant them immediately where you want them to grow. They will remain dormant until the fall, but at least they won't dry out. I find that I forget about things left in pots. Besides, what you do now, you won't have to do in the fall when its cold, wet and rainging!

In the legume family, in general dried beans are higher in protein than dried peas. I think soybeans are the highest,followed by lentils, followed by dried beans in general (black beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans, etc.) and then by dried peas. In the pea category, dried southern peas (blackeyes, pinkeye purplehulls, zipper peas, crowder peas, etc.) are a little higher in protein than dried green peas (English peas, etc.). It goes without saying that any bean or pea harvested and eaten as a snap bean or as a edible podded pea or as a shelly green bean or pea has less protein than those grown to maturity and harvested dry because at the green stage they have not yet fully developed the proteins that will develop before you harvest them as dried peas/beans. I've grown most of the bean varieties offered by SESE but I grow them as snap beans or as shelly beans(particularly lima beans) at the green stage but not as dried beans, and they produce just fine in spring and fall, but most flower and set beans poorly in mid-summer because the heat impedes their pollination. Pretty much any bean variety I ever have grown, excluding runner beans which also have trouble in high heat, will produce well with only minimal irrigation as long as the temperatures don't go too far above about 90 degrees. At 90 degrees, blossom drop often becomes a problem. I don't grow beans or peas to the dried bean or pea stage because both are so inexpensive to buy in bulk at the grocery store that it does not make any logical sense to me to devote a lot of garden space to growing them and then devote a lot of time to shelling them, only to have a relatively small harvest as a result. When you grow beans to the dry stage, you are discarding the dry pods and keeping the dry beans/peas and it is amazing how a big bucket of bean or pea pods gives you relatively few peas/beans (by weight or volume) once shelled compared to all the empty, dried pods you throw on the compost pile. I don't like spending all that time growing and harvesting them only to keep 5% of the plant to eat while composting the rest, but that's just me. I simply like the maximum production from the soil we've spent years improving, and raising beans or peas to the dry stage gives us a smaller harvest overall than harvesting them and eating them as snap peas or snap beans, although the same harvest if eating them as green shellies. Drought tolerance is in the eyes of the beholder to a certain extent because there are many kinds of drought. Beans or peas that grow and produce well in moderate or severe drought might not grow and produce nearly as well once your area advances to extreme or exceptional drought. The beans that have produced best for me in periods of extreme or exceptional drought are Rattlesnake, Worchester Indian Red Lima and Violet's Multicolored Butter Beans. All southern peas produce very well in heat and drought. Dawn

I've done OK. I get enough to last me until next harvest... and we love garlic. This fall will be the first year that I will be able to plant my own seed. They are in the refrigerator now for an October planting date. You might want to look at http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3024807/garlic-experiment-results?n=6 and http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3943934/another-year-of-florida-garlic-in-the-kitchen?n=12  The picture is from last winter. It is some of the 10 week chill plants from the 10/12 week chill split. Shallots in the background.