Howard Hawhee

I would echo the idea of a black-and-white image on the black-and-white edition.  Too often, when one gets a publication that's got a color cover, there is a bit of a letdown when the rest of the book is black and white.  Also, perhaps you could use an entirely different image for the black-and-white version.  That would give you a chance to find an image that looks really great in black and white and would serve to further differentiate the two versions.

I saw the original post.  I'm also in zone 8b with clay soil, though in Texas, so it's a lot hotter.  It is mid-August 2022, and this summer we have had temperatures of 100-106F  (38-41C) every day for the past two months and no rain.  Amaranth and sunflowers work even in this weather (but of course we planted them earlier).   We planted sorghum last year and it did well also.  We planted it early in the spring and gave it lots of extra water for the first few weeks.

Here in most of eastern North America we have Lamb's Quarters chenopodium album), a native plant considered a weed, but it grows without any intervention and is both good for its greens and its grain.  The greens are comparable to spinach.  It is a close relative of Quinoa (chenopodium quinoa) and north american indigenous cultures actually used it as one of the staples in their diet.   All of that makes me think that quinoa would do ok, though perhaps it likes cooler summers as it's from the Andes.  Both Lamb's Quarters and Quinoa are related closely to Amaranth.

Our corn burned up even though we watered daily.

What's the video that Lexie Smith watched?

Here´s a followup to my previous post here, in case anyone is reading this thread:  it is now the beginning of September after the February 2021 freeze, and the above-referenced figs that were killed to the ground are now 8 and 12 feet high, so as long as these freezes don't become very frequent, we should be back in business with figs next year or the year after.  

The loquats are coming back more slowly, but they will be ok too.  

We had some citrus rootstock that had grown to a huge size over the years and was giving us a whole bunch of bitter oranges, which are great for marmalade and other uses.  It also died back to the ground but is also coming back.

Joe, this sounds very much like what we can do at our location.  What's your gardening zone and what's your annual rainfall?  

Again, I haven´t got back to you yet as I intended, but just quickly, google "mesquite guild."  I don´t yet have any mesquites but am growing some of the things that they recommend in such a guild, namely, goji berry, banana yucca, and nopal aka prickly pear.  I also think grapes would work in such a guild and they grow well around here.  Oregano and mint would work, also the various alliums (multiplier onions and so forth), and then there are the things that aren´t perennial but that either come back from seeds or grow back from a freeze, such as cilantro or  sweet potatoes grown as a cover crop for the root layer -- the latter will die off in the winter but come back with warm weather (greens are edible).  Another annual cover crop that works well for us is hairy vetch, sown in the fall and coming to maturity in the spring.  I think almost all these things would do well in rocky soil.

I´ve tried moringa a couple of years in a row and just can´t ever get it to grow big enough to seem to be useful for anything.  I see all the enthusiasm about it and am not sure what I´m doing wrong.

We probably lost all three of our very big figs during the Big Freeze(tm) and probably at least three of our 5 loquats are goners, if not all of them.  It just happens that I had taken multiple cuttings of the figs last fall and at least a dozen of them are doing quite well, so I will try them again.  At this point I guess we don´t know if the extreme polar vortex thing is going to still only get this bad once every generation or so, as has been the case, or if it will now be more often with all the climate turmoil.  If the latter is the case, maybe it isn´t worth trying to restart some of these plants.

Krystal Comerford:  any suggestions about how to get one's hands on will arugula seeds in the first place?

Thanks for the reassurance, Ralph and Justin.  I just stepped over to the nopal patch and I can see what you mean.  Looking closely, I notice that the very bottom of many paddles is still green.

I don´t see any recent posts here, but in case someone is reading:  so it´s March of 2021 in Central Texas and our nopales look blasted, as in turned to mush, by the recent once-in-a-generation week of freezing weather that got like 10-plus degrees below where our 8b climate zone is supposed to get.  Any ideas if they will come back?  If not, any good ways to restart besides just going to a nursery?

You are having some of the same questions we have, and from your description of your site, it sounds like we might be maybe several dozen miles to your east -- we are just outside the northeast edge of Austin on an acre of transitional blackland prairie-post oak savannah.  So our soil is quite different from yours, but some of the natives will be the same.  Apologies for not going into it more right now, but I just saw this and wanted to dash off a note to let you know we´re here.  I´ll write more when I can see that you have read this.