Jane, I haven't saved seeds from melons, so I'm inexperienced. I wouldn't go with floating row covers, as pollinatoras may be able to crawl under them. I think you'd need to protect both the male and female flowers, by covering, or tying them up individually(the ones used in controlled pollinations). Then using a paintbrush to pollinate the females, with pollen from the male flowers. After pollination, the females would have to be protected until the fruit starts to form(so the bees don't pollinate as well). I'd look for better instructions than mine, on the internet, or in a book. Douglas

Hi Johnathan, no I haven't tried any fruit tree but next spring I am going to try a few palm tree in my home made box, I had so much good luck with my tomato plants in these home made box who knows what I will try next. I did make one box, well maybe not a box but a 5 gal bucket in to a growth container and put a Chinese Elm in it. Man it grew faster then I thought it would at lest I think it did it was 2" when planted in May come October it was 2 and 1/4 foot . I was going to use it for a bonsai but some one offered me quit a bit for the bucket and elm that I could not turn them down. Very dumb ...I did not get any pictures, I took picture of my tomato containers but not the elm......O-Well! Rick

They're hardier than you may think. Try to plant against your house for added warmth and protection (especially in zone 6b). I don't grow them in the house because they have died there for me in the past but usually make it outside (based on my own experience mind you in zone 7). Also, they used to grow slowly for me as containerized plants until I discovered that they grow faster in bigger pots (remember they want to be TREES, not cute little herbs). If you doubt their winter hardiness, plant one in a container (for overwintering indoor) and another in the ground (they are inexpenisive enough). Good luck!

@mamapinkey: Abridged answer: arguably any detergent in any temperature will clean better in soft water vs hard water, all other things being equal. Long-winded version: Soft water cleans everything better at all temperatures, by virtue of being soft water. This is due to the lower mineral deposit content in soft water. So the softer the water, the closer it will be to approaching distilled water (which, by way of comparison, is the ultimate soft water, with 0 parts per million (ppm) mineral content, since distilled water is created from condensation formed by steam, so there's nothing in it but pure h2o). The mineral deposit contents of your water hijack your detergents. The detergents latch on to the minerals instead of making their way to their designated destination (the dirt in your clothes), since the minerals will always get to the detergent first as soon as the water touches it. So the higher your water mineral content, the less detergent ends up left over and available to do what it's supposed to do. High mineral content is referred to as hard water (usually 150/200ppm+, depending who you ask). Because soft water has much less interference from mineral content, everything gets cleaner faster, and better, all while using less soap/detergent, and less residue remains after rinsing. Sorry for the long-winded explanation, but figured it'd be good to just put that out there in case anyone is reading who has heard "soft" and "hard" water thrown around, but without much clarification (I absolutely did not know the difference until I started having skin issues due to laundry detergent residue allergies about a year and a half ago). So back to your question: Soft water doesn't really require a detergent as well-built as this one (in any temperature). In either hot or cold soft water, a detergent like this might end up being overkill, as the sheer volume of water softening agents it contains indicates to me that it's designed for use in much harder water. So back to soft water. In soft water, it doesn't even matter, for example, whether your detergent is missing phosphates, which is a huge gripe nowadays (effectively, phosphate is pretty much a glorified water softener...see where this is going?), and you can get your clothes cleaner, in any temperature, with nearly any detergent (all other things being equal). People pay thousands of dollars to have whole-house water softeners installed because it just cleans stuff better (dishes, too), and it's also easier on your washing machine (less mineral/detergent residue). As far as the ingredients go... I'm super excited to see TAED in a US detergent in conjunction with the sodium carbonate peroxide (aka sodium percarbonate), which is the oxygen bleach. The TAED is a cold water bleach activator that's usually just found in Euro detergents (and they've been doing the eco thing so much longer, so their stuff tends to work better, in my experience). I don't use cold water, but think the science behind it is cool, for its own sake. And even though I purchased bulk sodium percarb off of Amazon, I've never been able to get the dosage amount quite right on my own without weakening my clothes (store-bought oxygen bleaches contain too many extra foaming ingredients for me since I use hot soft water)...but I love how well it cleans... And I get excited when a detergent contains a decent amount of it (they've obviously buffered it somehow). Per my original post, the sa8 did not work for me, but I'd recommend it to people who prefer to wash their stuff in cold water, and who also have hard water. I ended up returning my box of it to my dad (braving his disappointed look, lol), since I use hot water and it's very soft @72ppm, so this stuff actually foamed up too much for me for those reasons, which made rinsing difficult (the dark side of soft water haha). And no, I'm not an Amway sales rep. Are you?