One of the greatest restaurants I've ever eaten in is now gone.

What made it great? You went in, sat down and ate what Mary had prepared that day. What the boat brought in, she fixed. And if the catch was poor, she would close up with a note on the door.

A little roadside restaurant over in south Alabama would cause me to plant more tomatoes, especially for my wife. Why? Because they make a sandwich that's out of this world. It's a "Southern BLT." It's not just a BLT. It's a BLT made with fried green tomatoes.

Consider building your next garden around what you eat. Kitchen gardens are an old idea that deserve a second look. They enable you to enjoy meals with a gourmet taste at homegrown prices.

Will the children eat vegetables if we make them into desserts? Probably so. Just don't tell them they're vegetables.

Chives grow wild in Italy and Greece and probably came with the explorers to the New World.

Transplants can make your garden more successful. And they've been around for a long time, although they haven't always been available in nice, easy-to-handle six-packs.

It makes no difference what we do, weeds seem to win. What you really want to do is prevent the weeds from going to seed. A favorite saying of my father's was "one year of seed equals seven years of weed."

Before you decide which plants to keep and which you plan to pitch from your landscape in the spring, consider your future selections' drought tolerance. "Unfortunately, our plants can't ring the doorbell and tell us they need watering," said Jim Midcap, a horticulturist with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Sometimes an important function of your landscape is to screen off objectionable views or create a space for privacy. Plants used for screening are usually evergreen and 15 to 20 feet tall or taller. They should be tough plants that thrive on neglect once established.