I read about the Earthbox and DIY Earthbox and could certainly give either of those a try. All we'd need extra is some prolonged HEAT to get those fruits matured. I did get 3 more cherry toms off a plant today, so I consider the season a complete success! I can already feel 'autumn' in the morning air out here. (Hush my mouth.)

AAAAAAAAAKKKKKKK!!!!!! No! Don't even THINK that!
Ha, I had to use cherry tomatoes in my zucchini dish last night.....plus the one lone small tomato off my mystery tomato plant. But it was yummy and there were NO leftovers!

Oh autumn, we have a preview this last weekend here in Phoenix and the garden LOVED it! Our highs were in the low 90's and it was cloudy off and on. After the scorching temps we've had (when my tomatoes get covered with sheets from lunch time until the sun goes down), it was such a wonderful respite!

This time of summer is like February in the cold climates....we're ready for change! I always hope to baby the tomatoes through until September to get a fall harvest.

So much of the US has been roasting for so long this year. Crista, you must feel about tomatoes like I do: there is nothing in a store that compare to the flavor of home-grown.

Woofie, (whispering real quietly) the vine maples are already turning orange, and have been, for a couple weeks. Seems like summer just started here, for cryin' out loud! I'm madly watering tomatoes in pots and pollinating all open blooms.

Well, so far the leaves (you're not listening now, are you trees?) on our cottonwoods haven't started dropping, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed and my mouth shut! And madly watering tomatoes in pots and pollinating open blooms and snagging seed pods!

It's official: I have our first green beans and enough lettuce to feed every rabbit in King County!

What kind of seed pods do you collect? I always think I'm going to do that and then time escapes me.

Morning glory (none of those yet), petunia, nicotiana, salpiglossis, lavatera, pansy, poppy, sometimes zinnias, uh more or less anything I notice that has seeds ripe for picking!

Hey I have a lot of weeds going to seed over here your welcome to pick till your heart is content.

(( In response to the)) ''anything I notice that has seeds ripe for picking""

Annie, about the tomatoes -- I think if you can set up some sort of hoop house it will really be a help. I put up two that I bought on Ebay this spring and planted lettuce, bush beans, cukes, peppers, tomatoes and sweet potatoes in them -- everything is thriving, we had early beans and lettuce, our first tomatoes came from the HH, and the cukes -- that I thought were supposed to be a bush-type -- have gone absolutely nuts. I'm really looking forward to the time when we start getting frost, because we alway scramble to cover things up and get tomatoes and peppers just a little longer... this year they're already covered!

Hey, Cinda, you weren't paying attention: it's anything I NOTICE! You wouldn't believe how long I can ignore weeds!

This is my poor garden bench covered with foxtail and wild aster
The weeds are winning

Oh, poor bench! The one in my backyard looked like that till DH finally moved it and mowed!

Sandy, that is a very nice looking hoop house! Too bad the winds around here would destroy something like that.

Woofie, it's really quite sturdy; the frame is made of steel and we anchored it down with screw-in ground anchors. It also has "flaps" at the bottom that you bury with soil to keep air from getting up underneath. We've had some pretty strong winds and when everything is zipped up it doesn't even budge. (if the end doors were left open, that would definitely be a different story!) My biggest concern is snow in the winter -- I'm planning to put some supports under the hoops to keep them from bending down.

Where did you get it? Is this something that you bought or did you make it? I would dearly love to have an auxiliary place to put plants that have outgrown the GH when it's still too early to set them out.

I bought it (2 of them, actually) on e-bay -- if you search e-bay for "greenhouse" a whole bunch of these come up now, and they are cheaper than what I paid (which I thought was very reasonable, $129 with free shipping) as well! They also now apparently have a "powder-coated" steel frame to resist rust, which mine don't have. I believe I might have to get another one...

We had originally planned to construct one out of PVC pipe and plastic, but I'm pretty sure these look a lot nicer that whatever we would have come up with, are probably sturdier, and have the nice zipper doors and even screened windows. The covering has a mesh embedded into the plastic and is UV protected, so pretty sturdy. I also have a greenhouse for my seedlings, my main purpose for these was to be able to actually plant stuff in the ground and have it protected from the weather. I wish I had a huge one over the whole garden, LOL !

WOW! And that size would be perfect for the spot I have in mind! Ooooooh, temptation! This past year I was tripping over tomato plants in the GH and it was really hard to keep everything watered because it was soooo crowded! Heh, heh, I always get carried away with seed starting, and this was even with cutting back on the tomato plants.

Don't even get me started on how I get carried away with seed starting... next year I swear I am cutting back!!!

Where have I heard that song before?

Sorry people. I had company for the last week, and had to clean the house real well before then (can you spell exhausted?) I love the pricing of the Ebay hoop houses and free shipping! Definitely a must here with our cooler nights and short summers.

Our lousy western WA spring left me with 2 washouts of cuke seeds: I have two pathetic plants with no sign of blooms, several 2-3" summer squash and still enough lettuce to feed every rabbit in King county :)

BUT, BUT, BUT look what my dear mum brought all the way from her lovely, hot midwest garden: oodles and oodles of tomatoes with flavor! This is just a portion of what she hauled out. We had salad, we had BLTs, we had sliced tomatoes all week long and I enjoyed every cubic microgram of them. I've only had maybe 20 cherry tomatoes, a couple romas and more ripening up now, from plants from my pal Eweed here in WA. He's smart and grows in greenhouses/hoophouses all season too. That is my goal for 2011.