I would be willing to guess that most people actually did read your entire first post. However, no matter how excellent your writing skills, you just can't convey as much information as with a picture. No one wants to offer advice without having all the information possible. The lesson is, if you or anyone else wants a response to your questions, include pictures! Honestly, there is no problem with your Aloe. The tip of that leaf probably got damaged, and now the plant is recovering as much water as it can from it before it sheds it. As it pulls water out, the leaf will slowly die back, turning brown as it does. Like Norma said, once the leaf is truly dead and shriveled, it will pluck right off the stuff without much effort. Trimming it won't stop the progression, and trying to pull it off right is a bit extreme, and may injure the stem. Your plan of action for the other plants sounds good to me. Again, to be totally honest, commercial cactus mix is still way, way to rich in organic material. You'd be much better off mixing one or two parts drainage material (pumice, perlite, pea gravel, etc) with one part commercial cactus and succulent mix. It will just make things easier as far as watering goes. The other thing to keep in mind, is that these plants want as much sun as you can provide. You should slowly acclimate them to full sun over the course of a couple weeks to prevent sunburn. I know providing natural light can be very challenging as far north as you are, but the plants will be much happier. You'll find plenty more advice around here, on the internet, and in books. There are lots of different approaches, so you just need to find one that makes you happy. Norma's post is very dense with information, and if you researched each individual topic a little bit, you will immidiately leap from being a "begginer" to being a "novice." ;-) Last but not least, WELCOME!!!

Joe is right! You need to repot into a grittier soil mix-try commercial cactus mix which you can mix at 50-50 with coarse sand or a fine grade of gravel. the plant also enjoys full sun all day. Salvia is a heat loving plant and will enjoy your warmest, sunniest driest spot on your porch or in your yard. I,too, love this genus and have a Salvia apiana which I have in a clay pot with a soil mix of 1 part of this mix: commercial potting soil: 5 parts supersoil soil conditioner: 5 parts fine ground cover bank: 5 parts perlite: 3 parts then combine 1 part of above mix with 1 part of pumice to make the final mix for the sage. on the bottom of the clay pot I use a piece of screening to cover the drain hole then cover with 1/4-1/2 inch pea gravel then fill in with above mix, set on the salvia, and fill in with more mix. I have my plant in the sunniest spot I can find that is easy to get to to water (on the roof!) it gets some late afternoon shade. the plant leaves will appear to be closing up when it gets too dry but with the above mix I can water every other day or twice a week as the leaves indicate that it is dry. It is better to let the plant dry to the wilting point than overwater. Click here to read about Salvia

The brown leaves are probably because of sun. For the smallest leaves do you refer to the outmost leaves or innermost leaves? When Aloe vera is short of water, their outer leaves will become thin and curved inward first. There can be 2 reasons for Aloe vera being short of water - either underwatered or overwatered. For underwater, just water it more. If the latter, it probably got rotted roots which makes the water in the pot unavailable to the plant. May I ask you what kind of soil or mix you put it in? If that's gritty mix or alike, it's not likely to be overwatered. In case you just put it in potting soil or even Cactus soil, you got to check if the soil is still wet inside. You can push a skewer down into your pot till its tip is closer to the pot bottom, wait a minute and pull it out to see if there's a lot moisture on the skewer. If it looks very damp or to the touch, you potting mix probably is not very fast draining. Got to make some change then.

Hi Mr caledon Looks like a generally healthy plant that is starting its fruiting phase and coping with a combination of issues: Dry/soaked uneven watering, nutrient transport to developing tomatoes and perhaps not hardened as well as you could have. But nothing we haven't all seen and in my case quite often. If you have iron and epsom salt hit it lightly with them, if not, increase the fertilization around 20% if you are controlling that and be sure to water more evenly from now on ... and as usual, not to over-water. my 2c PC