My health could be better. I've started vegetable gardening again and, expect the home-grown veggies to help drastically.

I have grown just about all of my veggies in 6-inch-deep planters 2 feet wide X 8 feet long. The planters are 2 feet off of the ground. Everything seems to be doing fine. The raised beds served two purposes, to allow me to work with less bending and, to escape the possible contamination.

The Murphy Oil Spill was 1 1/2 miles from here. And, Katrina left behind about 18 inches of slop after her flood-waters receded. There was considerable concern over the quality of this 18-inches of new soil now in our environment.

I did plant a really high lasagna-bed on the ground (raised about 12 inches above scraped ground) for squash and sweet potatoes.

The news tonight talked of the low glycemic rating of the pomegranate and, the craze surrounding this fruit. Will they grow here? What kind of plant are they? Bush? Vine? Tree?

If it's ground water, I think I could raise the level of the soil and create a faster-draining soil by what material I build the bed with.

However, if it's the humidity, I can't much blame 'em cause I hate the humidity also. And, can't do a thing about it.

Man, I wanted for them to grow here! You would know, Bitter Melon grows beautifully here and taste like yuck. I know, it's loaded with stuff that's good for me.

Pomegranate has tons of good stuff in 'em too. And, they taste great.

Anyone out there wanna trade 1 Ripe pomegranate for a hamper of ripe Bitter Melon?

I planted a one gallon dwarf bush this year (in january) and it looks super-healthy and is growing like crazy (it has over doubled in size). I live in Houston where it is very humid like LA, and we have had a ton of rain this spring. I have one bud that is about to bloom.

I am with Keith - give it a shot. Plant it on a mound thats not in a low spot of your yard. If you know anyone who has one, or if you buy one at the grocery store, they are supposed to be very easy to grow from cuttings or seeds. I planned on doing it this way, but a 1 gallon plant was $5 and a pomegranate at the store was $1, so it just made a lot more sense to buy the plant.

It really couldn't be called a bush; it was far too large. As children, we actually climbed in it to get the fruit. I know that there were new pomegranate plants around the tree each year; they just came up from seed. Several people dug these up to have their own. Others we just mowed down.

I plan to plant a pomegranate at my home near Baton Rouge. Although my grandmother's house has not been occupied in 30 years, I may try to go there and see if I can dig up offspring from the tree. (The original tree was still there the last time I was at the house.)